The competent officials of the European Commission raised no objection to the fact that the EU-Ukraine Association Council placed the case of the new Ukrainian education legislation on the agenda of its meeting due to be held at the beginning of December, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade announced in Luxembourg, after the Monday meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Member States of the European Union.
Péter Szijjártó said: minority rights are being grossly violated in Ukraine, and with the latest education legislation Kiev also violates the Association Agreement it signed with the European Union.
At the meeting of EU Foreign Ministers, the Minister initiated that the EU-Ukraine Association Council should lay down emphatically that, based on the Agreement, Kiev is required to continuously reinforce minority rights.
Mr Szijjártó said: neither Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, nor Johannes Hahn, European Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations raised objections of any kind.
As the Commission proposes the items on the agenda, Hungary is making its preparations in light of the possibility that the case of the Ukrainian education legislation will be on the agenda of the Council meeting to be held in December, he added.
Mr Szijjártó told journalists during a break of the meeting that with the new Ukrainian education law Kiev dramatically violates not only minority rights, but also human rights.
Restricting education in minority languages cannot serve as a means for improving fluency in Ukrainian. Taking away the right to learn in the mother tongue is not the way towards the wider teaching of the Ukrainian language.
He said: in the wake of the education legislation – provided that it remains in force – the operation of 71 Hungarian schools will be frustrated as all teachers will be required to teach students over the age of ten years in Ukrainian which will lead to the closure of schools and the dismissal of teaching staff.
Mr Szijjártó stated: the Hungarian Government is prepared to conduct consultations, but their success depends on whether the elements of the law which „grossly violate” minority rights are revoked, or at least suspended.
“In the dispute of the Ukrainian Government and the Hungarians in Transcarpathia, we shall always be on the side of the Hungarian community, and to the very end”, the Minister said.