“It is still not up to the Hungarian government whether we return to good Hungarian-Ukrainian relations”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó wrote on his Facebook page with relation to the Ukrainian Language Act issue.

The Minister was reacting to the fact that, following their meeting in Kiev on Friday, Ukrainian Education Minister Hanna Novosad said she doesn’t regard any of the proposals that Mr. Szijjártó put forward at the meeting as feasible.

Mr. Szijjártó wrote on social media that on Friday the Ukrainian Minister for Education had promised before several witnesses, including the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, to soon meet with representatives of the Carpathian Hungarian Teachers’ Association and discuss the proposals with them. “I hope she keeps her word. A return to good relations is still not up to us”, he emphasised in the post.

During his visit to Kiev, Mr. Szijjártó informed his Ukrainian negotiating partner with relation to the Hungarian proposals concerning the possibility of the simultaneous teaching of the Ukrainian language for minorities and enabling Transcarpathian Hungarians to preserve their native language. According to the Ukrainian Minister, the Hungarian Foreign Minister put forward two proposals. One was that Ukraine should include the Hungarian minority living in Transcarpathia among the autochthonous nationalities living on its territory, because in autochthonous nationality schools students can study all subjects in their native language from grade 1 right through to their high school final exams. According to the other proposal, instead of switching to the Ukrainian language gradually with relation to the teaching of certain subjects in the interests of increasing the ratio of Ukrainian in education, they should instead increase the number of Ukrainian language lessons.

(MTI)