Tuesday's Ukrainian law that allows more extensive use of the Russian language and has drawn vehement protests "in no way undermines the status of the Ukrainian language," Social Policy Minister Sergiy Tigipko said on Friday.
“Politicians have been playing on this issue for 20 years. Everyone
earns their political dividends. It seems to be that it’s about time we
put a lid on it. Excellent guidelines, European principles,” Tigipko,
who is also a deputy prime minister, told a news conference in Kharkiv.
“I don’t like the methods that were used in the first reading, and
possibly some elements of the second reading. But today everyone is
talking about the latter situation, for some reason. Everyone keeps
silent about the former situation, where a man was taken to the hospital
immediately,” he said.
“I would like discussions to focus on the substance of the matter:
what has been done and what is wrong about it. If there’s something
that’s wrong, let’s discuss those matters and put them right. But I can
say that there’s a huge number of correct measures that are involved,”
Tigipko said.
“Ukraine has suffered a great deal because of the complicated
development conditions of culture and language, but today we’ve been
forgetting this very quickly when we became the majority,” he said. “We
must value the other cultures that exist in our country.”
The parliamentary opposition said the passage of the law “On
Fundamentals of State Policy on Languages,” which received 248 votes in
the 450-seat legislature, had involved a large amount of legal offenses.
Immediately after the law was passed protests started in Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine.
