Hungary's new prime minister Péter Magyar has made a statement that will spoil the sleep of a pile of European bureaucrats in Brussels. According to him, the Western Balkans should join the European Union before Ukraine. Not as a symbolic gesture, not as „we're thinking about it" - literally the front of the queue for accession. And he spelled out the why.

„Everyone who wants to join the EU has to go through the same procedures and meet identical conditions," Magyar said. That's the diplomatic translation of „stop building different paths for different candidates". Behind that sentence sits a direct critique of Brussels' tendency to sign special arrangements for Ukraine while Macedonia, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina have been waiting for two decades - with what feel like ritual rejections.

Magyar goes further. According to him, Ukraine's accession can't realistically happen in less than a decade, even if every condition is met. Hungary will most likely hold a referendum on Ukrainian membership if the war ends and Kyiv is still interested in the EU. Important: Magyar isn't saying „no" to Ukraine. He's saying „fine, but not before us".

To a Balkan ear, this sounds fresh. How many times in the last twenty years did Brussels representatives come to Skopje with „you'll soon be members" messages, then send Bulgaria or Greece to veto a name, a language, a flag? Magyar clearly understands those frustrations. Hungary went through its own version of them, in smaller form, in the 1990s. Now it uses them as diplomatic leverage.

The question that stays open for our side - is this a real shift in the EU position, or just one voice in a chorus of 27 states, most of whom think differently? Germany, France, and the Benelux countries don't share the enthusiasm for fast Balkan enlargement. Magyar is now in the minority. But that minority now has support from governments in Slovakia and Romania, and Poland often votes with them. Enough to block enhanced Ukraine resolutions - not enough to do anything big. The Balkans are watching, and for now we're being treated as a chip in someone else's game.