KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th February, 2020) Ukraine expects Hungary to unblock its high-level dialogue with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the country's Foreign Ministry said on Friday, following a meeting between its head, Vadym Prystaiko, and Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.
Budapest has consistently criticized Kiev for its discriminatory policies against ethnic minorities, including a Hungarian one, especially Ukraine's past initiatives to limit teaching in languages other than Ukrainian. As a result, Hungary used its position to impede negotiations between Ukraine and NATO. On January 16, the country's parliament adopted a new law on school education, making a place for the Hungarian language within its educational process.
"Prystaiko noted that with the adoption on January 16, 2020, of the law 'On Secondary Education,' Ukraine has fulfilled all recommendations of the Venice Commission ... and counts on Hungary to unblock Ukraine's high-level dialogue with NATO," the ministry said in a statement.
In 2012, Ukraine adopted a law that gave regional status to minority languages, Russian among them. After the change of power two years later, the Ukrainian constitutional court reconsidered the law's legitimacy and eventually ruled it unconstitutional.
On 27 September 2017, former President Petro Poroshenko signed the new education law, which considerably limited the opportunity for studying in other languages, apart from the Ukrainian.
In April 2019, the parliament adopted the new language law, which established the Ukrainian as the only authorized language in education, the judiciary, health care, and all major state services.
