The Ukrainian parliament on Friday passed three bills necessary to start negotiations on joining the European Union, including on the rights of national minorities, which is an important condition for Hungary, which opposes Ukraine’s EU candidacy, but at the same time an expected step. from Romania, which criticized the first form of the law, reports News.ro.

Minority languages ​​mainly refer to Romanian and Hungarian, which are spoken in some communities in Western Ukraine, Kyiv Independent notes, and does not apply to the language of the aggressor country, such as Russia.

Deputy Yaroslav Yelezniak reported in Telegram that the deputies voted in the final reading of the draft law on the rights of national minorities, taking into account the assessment of the experts of the European Commission.

“At the moment, the Ukrainian parliament has adopted by a constitutional majority three of the four laws identified by the European Commission in the report on EU enlargement as debt,” Deputy Prime Minister Olga Shtefanisyna confirmed in a post on X. She added that the fourth requirement is a law on lobbying – was adopted by the Kyiv Cabinet of Ministers on Tuesday.

Budapest is in conflict with Kyiv over what it sees as restrictions on the rights of ethnic Hungarians in western Ukraine, particularly in education.

The other two adopted bills refer to the increase in the staff of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and additional powers of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau to inspect property.

Next week, the EU’s 27 national leaders must decide whether or not to accept the European Commission’s recommendation to invite Kyiv to start accession talks. However, any such decision needs unanimous support. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has repeatedly stated that Hungary will not support the Commission’s proposal in its current form.

What the law on minorities provides

As “Ukrainian Pravda” reports, the Committee on Humanitarian Policy and Information on Thursday recommended to the parliament to adopt a revised version of the originally submitted draft law on the rights of national minorities. This amended project was approved on Friday by 317 deputies from all political parties.

The changes provide that:

• – private institutions of higher education have the right to freely choose the language of instruction, which is an official language of the European Union, while ensuring that persons studying in such institutions study the state language as a separate academic discipline;
• – in classes (groups) with instruction in languages ​​of national minorities (communities), which are official languages ​​of the European Union, the right to use the language of the relevant national minority together with the state language in the educational process is guaranteed;
• – persons who belong to national minorities (communities) in Ukraine, whose languages ​​are official languages ​​of the European Union and who started general secondary education in the language of the relevant national minority (community) before September 1, 2018, have the right to continue in this language until obtaining a full general secondary education in accordance with the norms that were in effect before the Law of Ukraine “On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as a State Language” came into force.

Co-author of the bill, member of the commission Volodymyr Vyatrovych emphasized that all the improvements included in the bill will not apply to the Russian language, the language of the aggressor state, “and not for 5 years, as the government planned, but for an indefinite period.”

On Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olga Shtefanishyna said that the draft law will contain additional guarantees to prevent the penetration of Russian narratives and propaganda. Earlier, the government official stated that the new draft law, aimed at protecting national minorities, does not provide for the expansion of opportunities for the Russian language.

Romania, dissatisfied with the first version of the law

The original law, passed in December 2022, was heavily criticized by the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In a press release on December 22, 2022, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from Bucharest reported that Bohdan Aurescu sent his Ukrainian colleague Dmytro Kuleba an extremely critical analysis after the adoption of this law, considering it “regrettable” that the regulatory act was adopted without consultation with the Venice Commission and the Romanian community in Ukraine.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted at the time that the new law is an improved version compared to previous draft laws that were analyzed at the level of the Ukrainian legislative body, but “provisions that may have a negative impact with reference to European standards are preserved.”

These would be:

• while the Conclusion of the Venice Commission no. 960/2019, formulated in relation to the Law of Ukraine “On the Functioning of the State Language”, is critical from the point of view of the provisions on the use of the official language in education, the Venice Commission refers to the criticism formulated earlier in the context of the assessment of Art. 7 of the Law on Education, the article of the Law on National Minorities, devoted to education, refers to the provisions of the Law on Education, therefore, the concerns of the Romanian side in terms of the right to education are not satisfied;
• there are unclear wordings regarding the monitoring duties of the central body that implements state policy in the field of national minorities, regarding the activities of associations of citizens of national minorities;
• there is no provision on the use of the native language in relations with the judiciary;
• uncertainty remains regarding the specific application of the provisions on the use of minority languages ​​in administration, in areas traditionally inhabited by persons belonging to national minorities and at their request, as well as those regulating information of general interest (advertising, which, among other things, contains a public offer to conclude a contract, information plates, signs, boards, messages, inscriptions and other publicly placed textual, visual and audio information that is used or can be used to inform an unlimited number of persons about goods, works , services, separate commercial structures, officials, employees of enterprises or state bodies, local self-government bodies) are duplicated in the language of the national minority (community) by decision of the village, commune, city. councils;
• the right to practice one’s religion or belief does not, in addition, apply to a separate provisionbeing included only in the article relating to the right to freedom of expression;
• and a positive measure is the creation of an advisory body within the central body of executive power, which ensures the formation and implementation of state policy in the field of protection of the rights of persons belonging to national minorities, WITHthere remains a lack of clarity as to how to determine which organization is a minority organization when, for example, several associations are created within one national minority;
• the issue of financial support for the translation of information on artistic and cultural events, when it is necessary to provide a translation into the state language, has not been clarified;
• the issue of insufficient funding of representative associations of national minorities remains, with the possibility of only timely funding for projects and on a competitive basis within the budget allocated annually for these purposes.

In October 2023, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu announced at the end of a joint meeting of the governments of Romania and Ukraine that the authorities in Kyiv had decided to recognize the Romanian language as the official language of the Romanian minority in Ukraine.

This measure was adopted in the context of Ukraine’s obligation to fulfill the criteria for joining the European Union, one of the criteria also concerns the rights of national minorities.

• “We are talking about the rapid accession of Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova to the European Union. For this introduction, there are also some principles on minority rights. These principles are at the European level. And Romania adheres to all the necessary principles. accession to the European Union.
• Regarding the rights of minorities, I am convinced that Romania can make all legislation accessible to Ukraine, this approach is a good practice in Romania.
• Inter-institutional relations between me and Mr. Prime Minister are no longer at the level of promises. We decide together what is best for the peoples we represent.
• A government meeting was held as part of a joint meeting between Romania and Ukraine, and the government’s decision was that Romanian is the official language on the territory of Ukraine,” Ciolacu said.

The head of the executive power also addressed the rights of Orthodox priests of the Romanian community in Ukraine, who have the right to conduct services in the Romanian language.

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