You're reading: Language law signed. Now what?

Despite signing into law on Aug. 8 a measure that gives the Russian language official regional status in many parts of Ukraine, President Viktor Yanukovych’s administration vows changes to placate critics who fear the legislation threatens use of the Ukrainian language.

“It’s impossible to fulfill it today,” said Hanna Herman, the president’s adviser of humanitarian and social issues. “I have the president’s word that these changes will be approved [by parliament] by the end of September.”

In the meantime, opponents of Yanukovych and the language law are preparing to protest on Independence Day on Aug. 24.

While the law takes effect immediately, Herman said the state bureaucracy will not be able to enact the legislation quickly or cheaply.

The law, approved by parliament on July 3, allows official use of languages other than Ukrainian – the only official national language – in regions where 10 percent or more of the population speaks something else. At least 11 out of Ukraine’s 24 oblasts will get Russian as a regional language.

Romanian should become the regional language in Chernivtsi, Hungarian in Zakarpattya and Crimean Tatar in Crimea.

People will get the right to conduct any business with the central and local governments in their regional language, including representation in courts, education, processing of paperwork and publishing of official documents, among other things.

The Finance Ministry estimated in June that the law will cost at least $1.5 billion each year to implement – something the nation can ill afford.

Herman, a Ukrainian speaker herself, said a special government program is needed for both the law’s implementation and the protection of Ukrainian. The law allows the state language to be replaced with regional ones, which appears to be unconstitutional. Herman said this and other controversial clauses will be re-evaluated.

In the meantime, confusion reigns. Some, like Bohdan Batruk of B&H Film Distribution, which specializes in Ukrainian dubbing of movies,  has no idea how it will affect their industry.

Others, like Anetta Antonenko of Kalvaria publishing, fear that their industry will be affected for the worse. “We already have many Russian books on our market and we’ll get more of them. As a result of this law it would be harder for us – those who publish only in Ukrainian – to compete for state orders during state tenders to publish books,” she said.

Antonenko said that it’s impossible to foresee what would happen to the new law.

“In the end it is hard to predict how it will evolve. If it’s only politics the law might be forgotten and not implemented at all,” Antonenko said.

Kyiv Post editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at [email protected] and staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at [email protected]