Hungary is disappointed with Ukraine's plans to sanction dual nationality, as is proposed in amendments prepared by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to the law on citizenship.
Ukraine is taking "unprecedentedly hateful and premeditated" action against national minorities, the Ukrainian President and parliament are stripping national minorities of their acquired rights step by step, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto said in response to the proposal to pass a law that will introduce sanctions against citizens of Ukraine who have dual citizenship and participated in other countries' elections, the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said on its website.
"The 'first strike' against minority rights was the Education Act, in which they significantly restricted the rights of national minorities to receive education in their native language, and despite international pressure Ukraine continues to refuse to begin negotiations on the issue with minority representatives," the ministry quoted Szijjarto as saying.
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The Hungarian minister said the "second strike" was declaring the Language Act to be unconstitutional, with relation to which he indicated that there are currently three pieces of draft legislation on a possible new Language Act before Ukraine's parliament and "each one is worse than the next."
According to the minister, the "third strike" is the fact that the Ukrainian president has asked parliament to accelerate the adoption of legislation on the sanctioning of dual nationality.
"While Ukraine is striving to join NATO at the earliest opportunity, it is attempting to ensure that if someone is also a citizen of another NATO member state then they should be stripped of their Ukrainian citizenship, because it claims dual nationals represent a risk to national security," Szijjarto said.
He also pointed out that Hungary is under significant international pressure to retract its veto of further NATO-Ukraine negotiations, and Hungary views this international pressure as unfair in view of the fact that Ukraine is responsible for the situation that has arisen.
"Hungary will not bow to international pressure and sacrifice the rights of the Hungarian people living in Ukraine on the altar of geopolitical interests," the Hungarian minister said.
"Hungary will continue to veto Ukraine's accession to NATO until it restores the rights that were previously afforded to national minorities. If Hungary were to bow to pressure and 'forego' the veto it would remain without instruments with which to protect the rights of Hungarians living in Ukraine," he said.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Poroshenko on April 19 tabled a bill in parliament that proposes stripping of Ukrainian citizenship for, among other things, participation in "elections" in Russian-occupied Crimea.
