Hungary has blocked the opening of the EU accession negotiating clusters 2 and 3 for Ukraine, marking the fourth such refusal, as Kyiv said Budapest has yet to specify its demands in exchange for lifting its objection. The Council of the EU’s Working Party on Enlargement (COELA) failed to approve the screening results for Ukraine on Tuesday, Sept. 8. Citing its own sources, Ukrainska Pravda reported that EU diplomats were unable to persuade Hungary to change its position.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. “We are practically negotiating with our Hungarian partners with the EU every day to avoid artificial delays in the negotiation process,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi told European Pravda, speaking separately at a Foreign Ministry briefing earlier Tuesday. Moldova’s accession caught in the same dispute The move follows a previous refusal on Sept. 1, when Hungary offered to lift its objection only if Kyiv demonstrated progress in protecting the rights of the country’s Hungarian minority in the Transcarpathia region. However, the legislative steps Ukraine is expected to take remain unspecified. The blockage also affects Moldova, as the two countries’ processes are directly intertwined. In July, Hungary indicated that it was prepared to approve the screening results for Moldova’s cluster 3, but other EU member states, including Ireland – which holds the Council presidency – opposed separating Moldova’s accession path from Ukraine’s, meaning no decision was reached for either country, as all decisions require unanimity from all 27 EU member states.