“There must be a legal guarantee that Ukraine will not begin implementing the new Education Act until an agreement has been reached with the local Hungarian community with relation to it”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on Wednesday in Paris, where he held talks with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin and U.S. Secretary of State Wess Mitchell within the framework of an extraordinary Hungarian-Ukrainian-American trilateral meeting.

“Ukraine cannot implement a law relating to education without having come to an agreement with the representatives of the Hungarian national community. Promises are not sufficient, we need legal guarantees that this will happen”, Mr. Szijjártó said.

“What we require is for the Ukrainian Government to come to a legally binding decision which makes it clear that the implementation of the new Act will not begin until talks with the Hungarian national community have been successfully concluded”, he added.

According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, claims that this is a bilateral Ukrainian-Hungarian issue “portray a false image”. “By adopting the new Education Act, Ukraine has violated the most fundamental international norms with relation to protecting minorities, including the European Union’s and the Council of Europe’s regulations on protecting minorities and the plan of action that Ukraine has undertaken within the framework of NATO”, he pointed out.

The Minister indicated that Hungary’s standpoint is in full harmony with the expectations of the European Union and the Council of Europe, and Hungary would definitely like the situation to be resolved, preferably in a manner that is favourable to Transcarpathian Hungarians.

“It is a matter of principle that the rights that have already been afforded to the Hungarian minority as set down in international law cannot be removed. (…) And the new Education Act significantly reduces those rights, and by doing so contravenes the relative regulations”, the Minister said.

Hungary expects Ukraine to amend the parts of the Education Act that pertain to minorities in line with international law and the decision of the Venice Commission, according to which they must begin true consultations with the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia with regard to their expectations.

According to Mr. Szijjártó, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister has promised to begin these talks, but the Hungarian Government is insisting on there being legal guarantees requiring such consultations.

“Without legal guarantees, Hungary will stand by its decision to block all of Ukraine’s international aspirations in the European Union and within the framework of NATO”, the Minister declared.

Mr. Szijjártó pointed out that Hungary has always supported Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations, and will continue to do so if it receives legal guarantees that Ukraine will not implement the Education Act in its current form, but will being consultations with the Hungarian community and will only implement an Act with regard to which it has previously come to an agreement with Transcarpathian Hungarians.

According to the Minister, consultations with the local Hungarian community can only be successful if the Ukrainian Government suspends the implementation of the part of the Education Act that pertains to minorities (Article 7).

In reply to a question from Hungarian news agency MTI, Mr. Szijjártó said: “A solution is in the interests of the American party, which regards the issue as a geopolitical one, and its goal is to ensure that there are as few disputes as possible within the regional alliance it is part of”. “This is good news for us, but only a solution that is suitable to local Hungarians can be acceptable”, he added.

Several neighbouring countries, including Hungary, Romania and Poland, have protested against Article 7 on the language of education of the new Ukrainian Education Act signed by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on 25 September 2017. This part of the legislation, which would otherwise only come into force in September 2020, states that the language of education in Ukraine shall be Ukrainian. Native language education for national minorities will only be permitted until grade four, and only in special classes or groups in schools that are maintained by local governments. From the fifth grade upwards, all subjects will be taught in Ukrainian, although the new regulations would allow the teaching of one or more subjects in the language of any EU member state.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade/MTI)