Ladies and Gentlemen
I represent the Hungarian minority from Transcarpathia, Ukraine.
Ukraine is involved in an armed conflict, and a large number of people had to leave eastern
Ukraine. However, there are severe human and minority rights violations also in the western part
of the country in Transcarpathia as well.
Transcarpathian Hungarian Cultural Association would like to kindly request your assistance to
improve a series of laws either being in force, or in a stage of discriminatory drafts on the rights
of linguistic and ethnic minorities living in Ukraine.
A cause for concern is the fact that the Constitutional Court of Ukraine has set on the agenda to
revision of constitutional validity of the Law “On Principles of the State Language Policy”. This
issue is highly probable to result in a complete abolition of the language rights acquired by
non-native speakers of Ukrainian and persons belonging to national minorities. This would be
contrary to the international legal obligations of Ukraine.
The Law on Education is also under change. Sadly, the law which is being drafted, would further
restrict the education in minority languages. It would just “offer the possibility” to teach some
subjects in Hungarian, while a series of subjects should be taught in Ukrainian.
We would respectfully like to ask you to express – through diplomatic channels – your protest
against and take actions to prevent the forward-looking Ukrainian Language Law and Education
Law to be accepted in the spirit of and in line with European aspirations and standards.
We believe that ensuring constitutional rights and proper implementation of laws as well as
protection of minorities in line with the best practices in Europe, should be implemented in
Ukraine as well.
Thank you Mr. Chairperson.