Representatives of Hungarian communities refused to participate in consultations with the Ukrainian Education and Science Ministry on the implementation of the language clause of the law on education, which were scheduled for February 14.
“Now in the international arena everyone felt tension and absolutely manipulative statements by the Hungarian foreign minister,” Education and Science Minister Lilia Hrynevych said at a government meeting on February 14.
According to her, after the Venice Commission submitted its proposals to the law on education, the Education and Science Ministry developed a “road map” for the implementation of language norms.
“We have been consulting with the Hungarian community, there have already been two big meetings. These consultations were to continue today, but the leaders of the Hungarian community told us that they would not come for these consultations because of the submission [of an address] by MPs from the Opposition Bloc to the Constitutional Court,” she added.
In her opinion, this leads to a delay in the consultative process for settling the situation around language norms.
As was reported, the Ukrainian law on education came into force on September 28, 2017.
Among other things, the law stipulates that the state language is a language of learning at educational institutions, but one or several subjects in two or more languages, namely, the state language, English and other European Union official languages can be taught in compliance with the educational program.
People who belong to ethnic minorities are guaranteed the right for learning in the native language along with the Ukrainian language in separate groups of municipal pre-school and primary school institutions.
On September 26, Hungary’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade announced it would block Ukraine’s rapprochement with the European Union because of the law on education. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry sent the law to the Venice Commission for vetting.
On December 8, the Ukrainian Education and Science Ministry reported that the Venice Commission had not supported Hungary’s accusation of narrowing the rights of national minorities in the article on the language of instruction in Ukraine’s law on education.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science declared its readiness to implement the recommendations of the commission and developed three models for the implementation of the language article in the law “On General Secondary Education.”
On February 7, Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Vasyl Bodnar, following his visit to Zakarpattia region, wrote on Twitter that key issues on the settlement of the language issue had been agreed with the representatives of Hungary.
On February 14, the Cabinet of Ministers approved and submitted to the Verkhovna Rada a bill that proposes to extend the transitional period of the implementation of the language article on the law on education from 2020 to 2023.
According to Hrynevych, this change must be made to implement the proposals of the Venice Commission.
