STATEMENT OF ELENA BEREZHNAYA—DIRECTOR OF THE PUBLIC ORGANIZATION “IRINA BEREZHNAYA INSTITUTE OF LEGAL POLICY AND SOCIAL PROTECTION” Forum on Minority Issues—12th Session Unfortunately, despite the statement of the representative from Ukraine, Tishchenko, the participation of national minorities of Ukraine in socio-economic life is limited at the governmental level. The primary opportunity for its realization and adaptation in the socio-economic life for national minorities is the preservation of their native language. However, the Law of Ukraine “On Education” adopted on 5 September 2017 is contrary to the Convention on the protection of national minorities, according to which the state is obliged to ensure the right of national minorities to study in their native language. However, Article 7 of this law prescribes that education in all secondary schools in the territory of Ukraine, including private ones, take place in the Ukrainian language. This legislative norm has caused dissatisfaction in many countries, including states of the European Union. In particular, the government of Hungary officially stated that the Ukrainian law on education violates the principles of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union, and strongly protested by blocking the integration process of Ukraine into NATO. In addition, on 8 December 2017, the European Commission “For democracy through law”, better known as the Venice Commission, made an expert conclusion regarding the linguistic elements of the Ukrainian law “On education”. One of the findings of this conclusion is that Article 7 of the law does not ensure compliance with the key principles necessary for the implementation of the framework law in the context of the international and constitutional obligations of the country. Members of the Venice Commission also pointed out that the adopted law does not provide solutions for languages that are not official languages of the European Union (EU), in particular for Russian, which is the most widely used language in Ukraine after the state language, while also stating: “a less favorable attitude towards these languages is difficult to justify, and therefore it attests to the discriminatory nature of the norm. With these considerations in mind, the correct decision would be to amend article 7 to replace these provisions with more balanced and clearly formulated ones. The issue of discrimination against the languages of other minorities whose languages are not official languages of the EU should also be resolved during the course of such a revision.” However, up to now, after nearly two years, none of the recommendations of the Venice Commission on educational reform have been implemented by the government of Ukraine. In October of this year, Ukraine signed an agreement with NATO on implementing the recommendations of the Venice Commission, but this does not guarantee the implementation of the agreement by Ukraine!