“Hungary wants to ask for the revocation of Ukraine’s already adopted Education Act, and the Language and Nationality acts that are currently before Kiev’s Parliament”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said at an impromptu press conference held following an event organised by the American Chamber of Commerce on Thursday.
“There are two other ‘dangerous’ bills currently before Ukrainian Parliament, one being the Language Act, which strictly restricts language use on the part of minorities, while the other would seriously sanction dual nationality”, Mr. Szijjártó highlighted.
During the past three years, Hungary has asked for the revocation of these three pieces of new legislation at every single bilateral meeting it has had with Ukraine, but received only “all kinds of cloudy promises”, he said.
The Foreign Minister said he would be meeting with his Romanian counterpart on Monday in view of the fact that “our mutual interests are clear”, and the Education Act is also having a very unfavourable effect on Romanian children in Ukraine.
In reply to a question, Mr. Szijjártó told reporters that negotiations with the CEU are ongoing, and expressed his hope that the parties will succeed in coming to an agreement. “We have already come to a successful agreement with the Chinese university operating in Hungary, and a Chinese delegation will be arriving in Budapest in the second half of October to sign the agreement on the continued operation of the university in Hungary”, he added.
“I very much hope that we succeed in coming to an agreement with the CEU on every important issue before the deadline set down by law”, Mr. Szijjártó said, adding “This has only one prerequisite: the CEU must also abide by the stipulations of the Act on Higher Education”.
The Foreign Minister also told reporters that a successful agreement had also been achieved with the Maryland-based American university operating in the Hungarian capital.
Mr. Szijjártó also spoke about illegal immigration, once again underlining the fact that the Government does not support any European standpoints that are aimed at facilitating it. “Hungary can only support an immigration policy that is capable of protecting Europe and that does not make the acceptance of illegal immigrants mandatory for any country”, he declared.