“The Hungarian standpoint with relation to the Ukrainian Education Act was put forward as a joint expectation towards Ukraine on the part of the European Union following Friday’s session of the EU-Ukraine Association Council in Brussels”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó announced following the meeting.

At his press conference, Mr. Szijjártó said the Hungarian Government has three expectations towards the Ukrainian authorities: that they do not restrict previously afforded rights, that they enter into negotiations with national minorities, and that they fully implement the recommendations of the Venice Commission.

It is an “important step forward” that the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini declared these same expectations in the name of the EU at the meeting, and accordingly the “false arguments” according to which this is a bilateral or exclusively Hungarian issue have been “refuted for good”, he stressed.

“The EU has clearly stated its expectations, and these fully concur with Hungary’s expectations”, Mr. Szijjártó highlighted, pointing out that the disputed regulations violate the Ukrainian Constitution, the closing document of the Eastern Partnership Summit and the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement to the letter.

The Minister also told the press that at the Council’s session the Ukrainian Prime Minister said Ukraine had no intention of restricting rights. “It would be good if the legislation we are objecting to was brought into line with this statement”, he added.

Mr. Szijjártó repeated his previous statement according to which until a few months ago Hungary was the loudest supporter of Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration aspirations. “Whether this will continue to be the case in future depends exclusively on Ukraine, because the situation has not changed on our account”, he said.

“The Government will state that the situation has been resolved if and when the local Hungarian community states that it has been resolved”, he said.

In reply to a question from the press, the Minister confirmed that the ambassadors of fourteen NATO member states have written a letter to Hungary asking that it not bring this issue before the North-Atlantic organisation.

Mr. Szijjártó said he had spoken with the foreign ministers of two of the signatory countries, Holland and Norway, and drawn their attention to the fact that it is a “false representation of the facts” that this is a bilateral issue that Hungary has taken before NATO. “We do not regard the situation between Russian and Ukraine to in any way be a mitigating circumstance with relation to the removal of the rights of the Hungarian minority; the two have nothing to do with each other”, he underlined, adding that the letter was not signed by the representatives of the United States or the Visegrád Group countries.

An anonymous high-ranked diplomat had previously stated that the possibility of a foreign minister-level NATO-Ukraine meeting has been raised prior to this week’s session of the Council, but in the end the meeting did not come about as a result of Hungary’s protest, and it was in reaction to this that the ambassadors wrote a letter to the Hungarian Government.

Mr. Szijjártó declined to comment on the American decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, telling the press that the Cabinet had not discussed the issue yet and that there was, however, no change in the country’s Middle East policy.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)