OSCE Agrees Situation With Minority Education In Ukraine 'Unacceptable' - Budapest

OSCE Agrees Situation With Minority Education in Ukraine 'Unacceptable' - Budapest

OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities Kairat Abdrakhmanov agrees that situation with the education of minorities in Ukraine is "unacceptable," and therefore Budapest has asked him to help halt the enactment of Kiev's new law on education, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Tuesday

BUDAPEST (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th March, 2023) OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities Kairat Abdrakhmanov agrees that situation with the education of minorities in Ukraine is "unacceptable," and therefore Budapest has asked him to help halt the enactment of Kiev's new law on education, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Tuesday.

Earlier in March, Szijjarto warned that Kiev was planning to start closing all 99 Hungarian minority schools in Ukraine in September. The Ukrainian authorities also want to limit the number of subjects taught in national languages to 20% after the fourth grade and ban the option of passing final and entrance exams in Hungarian, the prime minister said.

"OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities Kairat Abdrakhmanov has always been sympathetic to this issue, always ready to consider it in terms of facts and not under the influence of political expectations or ideologies. He himself made it clear that this is an obviously unacceptable situation, contradicting to international law," Szijjarto said after his meeting with Abdrakhmanov, adding that he had asked the OSCE commissioner for help in delaying the enactment of Ukraine's new law on education.

In addition, the Hungarian prime minister called the situation in Ukraine "a shame for a country that wants to become part of the European Union" and urged international organizations and the bloc itself to oppose such a law.

In February, Szijjarto said that, at the initiative of Hungary and Romania, the Council of Europe had decided to appeal to the Venice Commission with regard to the issue of national minorities' status in Ukraine. On March 6, the Hungarian prime minister also noted that many Ukrainian state institutions were ready to pay $850 a year to Hungarians in the Zakarpattia region if they send their children to Ukrainian-language classes, which Budapest considered unacceptable.

Tensions between Hungary and Ukraine flared up due to the 2017 Ukrainian law on education that restricts opportunities to study in their native language for minorities in the country. Hungarian officials criticized the law, saying it discriminated against the Hungarian minority living in Ukraine's western part. Hungarian flags were removed from public institutions in the Ukrainian city of Mukachevo and local villages, and several heads of Hungarian institutions close to the Hungarian Cultural Association of Zakarpattia were fired.