Romanian becomes regional language in Bila Tserkva in Zakarpattia region

Romanian has been declared a regional language in the Village of Bila Tserkva (Biserica Alba in Romanian) in Rakhiv district of Zakarpattia region. The language will be used in office work and administrative documents.

A posting on the official Web site of MP Hennadiy Moskal reads that such a decision was approved at the 12th session of Bila Tserkva Village Council on August 14, according to the law of Ukraine on the principles of the state language policy.

Moskal received a letter in Romanian language in response to his inquiry to the head of the village council, George Berinde. A scan of the document is available on the MP's Web site.

Bila Tserkva is one of five villages in Rakhiv district where the majority of the population is of Romanian origin. According to the population census in 2001, 11.6% of the population of Rakhiv district were Romanian speakers (10,500 people).

As reported, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, passed the language bill on July 3, 2012. On August 8, 2012, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych signed the bill into law and instructed the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to form a working group for the development of proposals to improve the language legislation of Ukraine. The law took effect on August 10, 2012. According to it, a language may be provided with the status of a regional language if the number of people considering it their native language exceeds 10% of the total population of the region.

Odesa regional and city councils, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhia, Sevastopol, Dnipropetrovsk and Luhansk city councils, Krasny Luch Town Council (Luhansk region), Zaporizhia, Donetsk, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regional councils have approved a decision to declare Russian a regional language.

The Crimean parliament instructed the Crimean government to draw up and submit for consideration its proposals on the implementation of the language law by October 10, 2012.

Hungarian has been made a regional language in the town of Berehove (Zakarpattia), and Moldovan in the village of Tarasivtsi in Chernivtsi region.