EU Unanimously Opens Cluster Six Accession Negotiations With Ukraine and Moldova

Analysis
Coreper's unanimous approval, taken without a Hungarian objection, confirms Budapest's June reversal on the veto has held through a second procedural test rather than a one-off, and folds Kyiv and Chisinau's defense and foreign-policy coordination with Brussels into a formal negotiating chapter instead of ad hoc alignment. Reporting draws on the Irish presidency and Kachka statements without independent confirmation outside the Ukrainian and EU-enlargement press cluster, limiting this to narrow corroboration. The same-day closure of chapters for Albania and Montenegro suggests the unanimity may reflect the Irish presidency banking enlargement wins before summer recess rather than a substantive shift in member states' appetite for defense-policy integration with Kyiv. The July 14 intergovernmental conference, not Friday's vote, is the act that formally opens the cluster.