Peter Siyyarto
The Minister of foreign Affairs of Hungary péter Szijjártó said that Budapest considers a “stab in the back” by the adoption of Kiev’s law on total Ukrainization of education. On Tuesday, October 3, reports “Radio Freedom”.
During a meeting with his Romanian counterpart Szijjártó noted the “naturalness” of a joint statement of the Budapest and Bucharest against the Ukrainian law. He believes that the education act is contrary to the Association agreement between Ukraine and the EU, the signing of which was supported by Hungary and Romania.
The Minister also saw a serious threat in the fact that the consideration of the Ukrainian Parliament went to the draft laws on language and citizenship.
Szijjártó reminded that, in the opinion of Budapest, the new legislative act violates the rights of national minorities in Ukraine.
On September 26 President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has signed the law on education. In response Szijjártó said that Kiev can forget about the European future. He promised that Budapest intends to block all initiatives that will benefit Ukraine in all international organizations, especially the EU. In turn, the head of the government of Hungary Janos Lazar warned that after the signing of the Ukrainian President act Ukrainianization of education, Budapest, Kiev is losing as a friend. He described the document as a gross violation of the rights of the Hungarian minority that is “shameful and unacceptable”.
On September 5 the Verkhovna Rada adopted the law on education, which actually bans the teaching of any language other than Ukrainian. In particular, in 2018 abolished the teaching of subjects in the national minority languages from the 5th grade. From 2020, the education in the languages of national minorities will be eliminated in the lower grades.