The passing by the Ukrainian parliament of the latest law on education in terms of language of instruction in schools for national minorities is a brutal violation of human rights, so the issue should be addressed at the next Ukraine-EU Association Council’s meeting, according to the Hungarian Foreign Minister, Peter Szijjarto who spoke to journalists ahead of the EU Foreign Affairs Council Monday.
“There is a brutal violation of the human rights in the neighborhood of the European Union since the Ukrainian parliament has passed the law on education where they violated very heavily the rights of the minorities as they have taken away the right of all the minorities to use exclusively their native language in education above the age of ten,” Szijjarto said, according to an UNIAN correspondent.
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“This is a brutal violation of human rights, a brutal violation of minority rights, and a brutal violation of the [Ukraine-EU] Association Agreement,” he said.
The Hungarian foreign minister went on to say that he “will initiate that [issue] during the next session of the Association Council with Ukraine.”
“We should put this on the agenda to address this situation because it’s very extraordinary, let’s put it this way,” he concluded.
The next Association Council meeting is scheduled for December 2017.
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Persons who belong to the indigenous peoples, national minorities of Ukraine, who have started to receive general secondary education before September 1, 2018, shall continue to receive such education by September 1, 2020, in accordance with the rules enforced before the new law becomes effective, with a gradual increase in the number of classes taught in Ukrainian.
Foreign ministries of several countries, including Romania, expressed concern about the language norms of the law on education in respect to representatives of national minorities.
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Hungary's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto later announced his country's intention to block any further rapprochement between Ukraine and the EU over the language row.
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However, Szijjarto refused to meet with Klimkin, saying that his Ukrainian counterpart was late with the proposal, and the meeting with Zakarpattia's Hungarians should have taken place before the adoption of the education law.