MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th June, 2020) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday following his talks with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell that the European Union's position of not being selective about which minority rights in Ukraine should be protected was worthy of respect.
"Ukrainians, at some point, in response to appeals from European capitals, said they could make an exception for national minorities that spoke in the languages of the European Union. I asked Josep Borrell straight that if such exceptions were made for the languages of the European Union, would Brussels and all other European capitals and the European Union as a whole calm down and step aside from upholding the need to respect the rights of all national minorities, including primarily the Russian-speaking minority?" Lavrov said during a press conference, adding that Borrell's answer was "no."
The Russian foreign minister went on to say, citing Borrell's response, that the European Union would not be selective about guaranteeing minority rights, be it in Ukraine or elsewhere.
"We believe that this is a position worthy of respect, which is the only possible position to approach the issue of national minorities from the perspective of existing international law," Lavrov noted.
In 2012, Ukraine passed a law that granted Russian and other minority languages the status of regional language in parts of the country, meaning that local residents were allowed to use them in Primary schools, courts and other state institutions. After the change of power in 2014, the country's legislature revoked the law, triggering unrest in the southeast of Ukraine, a territory with a predominantly Russian-speaking population.
In 2018, Ukraine's constitutional court ruled that the 2012 law was unconstitutional. In May 2019, then-President Petro Poroshenko signed a law making Ukrainian the only authorized language in education, the judiciary, health care and all major state services. The full switch to Ukrainian-language education is expected on September 1, 2020.
