A/HRC/28/64/Add.1 expense of Ukrainian.19 While the Law remains in effect, the Government has announced that new language legislation is being drafted and will be subject to review by the Commission before being passed into law. 39. Nevertheless, steps in February 2014 to abolish the 2012 Law on the Principles of the State Language Policy, although vetoed in practice, created anxiety as minorities were concerned that new amendments would weaken their linguistic rights. Ethnic Russians spoke passionately about the decline in use of Russian in education, and their desire to see enhanced protection measures put in place. Some pointed out that there were relatively few Russian language schools in relation to the number of Russians who considered it their first language and described a gradual decline of the Russian language and cultural institutions. 40. Some ethnic Russians voiced their concerns regarding assimilation and the gradual erosion of elements of Russian culture and language. One representative stated: “There is not a repressive environment, but there is an attempt to push out the Russian culture part of me.” Although according to Ministry of Education and Science statistics, in 2012/2013 Russian was the language of instruction and study in 1,256 schools providing general education, with 694,331 pupils being taught in Russian, ethnic Russian representatives noted a decline in education in the Russian language, notably in higher education, and that some Russian cultural centres had closed. 41. In practice, Russian remains widely used and understood. The Government states that 40 per cent of all printed media nationally are in Russian and up to 74 per cent of media broadcasts are in Russian in some regions. Government objectives of promoting Ukrainian as the national language may impact on the extent of Russian language use over time. Although according to the Government over 100 public associations represent the Russian minority, some ethnic Russians stated that civil society organizations and activities to promote Russian language and culture and to raise their issues and concerns were relatively weak. 42. The January 2014 report of the Committee of Experts on the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages,20 while noting some challenges for smaller linguistic minorities, stated: “In regard of Hungarian, Romanian and Russian the situation is by and large satisfactory and the right of speakers to receive education in these languages is more or less secured. The traditional models of teaching in Hungarian, Romanian and Russian have been preserved, although there seems to be a certain decline in the number of pupils enrolled.” Concern was expressed that the “phasing out of higher education in Russian will constitute an obstacle to full access of Russian speakers to higher education”. The report referred to an unmet demand from users of minority languages for support to establish and sustain cultural centres and a lack of long-term financing for such centres. 43. Civil society groups emphasized that any revised language law must fully conform with international standards and should not weaken the existing protection of the linguistic rights of minorities. Some expressed concern that a new language law might increase the threshold of 10 per cent for recognition of minority languages as “regional languages”, restrict language rights in fields such as the media and education, and provide weak language rights protection for smaller and dispersed minority groups. Importantly, some minorities stated that they had not been consulted about the process of drafting a revised 19 20 12 The Commission recommended the implementation of balanced policies in order to preserve Ukrainian as an integrative tool within society. See www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/?pdf=CDL-AD(2011)047-e. Available from www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/minlang/Report/EvaluationReports/UkraineECRML2_en.pdf.