The rights of Russians of Ukraine and Hungarians of Transcarpathia: Language will bring it to Strasbourg
The decision of the Venice Commission on the Ukrainian educational law is considered a victory by both Kyiv and Budapest, which are not going to change their tough positions. The matter will obviously continue in Strasbourg.
On December 8, the media published the text of the conclusion of the Council of Europe Commission “For Democracy through Law,” better known as the “Venice Commission,” regarding the new Ukrainian law on education, which has caused complaints from almost all neighboring countries of Ukraine.
The harshest critics of educational innovations in Kyiv were official Budapest and the Hungarian community of Transcarpathia. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó directly stated at the beginning of autumn: until the law is repealed, his country will block Ukraine’s integration into the EU and NATO, as well as all international initiatives that are important for Kyiv.
The threat proved to be well-founded: the Ukraine-NATO Commission meeting scheduled for December 6 was cancelled at Hungary's request, and on December 7, at the OSCE Foreign Ministerial Council meeting, Mr. Szijjártó demanded that a permanent mission be deployed to Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast . Hungary argued that monitoring was necessary due to tensions in the region.
The head of Hungarian diplomacy once again repeated that the adoption by the Ukrainian authorities of amendments limiting the rights of national minorities to education in their native languages was a disappointment for the Hungarian side.
“The new law absolutely contradicts Ukraine’s bilateral and multilateral obligations, including OSCE commitments,” the minister said, recalling the existence of “nationalist sentiments” in Ukraine and expressing concern about tensions in the Transcarpathian region.
“There were anti-Hungarian demonstrations there, which were joined by other cities in Ukraine, during which national symbols were violated and anti-Hungarian slogans were chanted,” Szijjártó emphasized in Vienna.
On December 8, after a meeting with representatives of Ukraine at a meeting of the Association Council in Brussels, when the text of the conclusion on the educational law had already been made public, Szijjártó said: “Ukraine must fully implement all the comments and opinions of the Venice Commission, which, as I understand, Ukraine intends to do.” .
By and large, this can be considered a compromise, since Budapest had previously demanded the unconditional revocation of the Ukrainian education law and stated that it would not respond to the Venice Commission's decision if it was in Kyiv's favor.
At the same time, in Kyiv they consider the conclusion of the legal experts of the Council of Europe to be their complete and unconditional victory, and are not going to make any compromises.
As the Minister of Education Liliya Grinevich emphasized, the recommendations of the Venice Commission do not contain demands to change Article 7 of the education law, which proclaims Ukrainian the only language of education in secondary school (with the exception of studying the language and culture of national minorities).
But the minister and the patriotic public were especially delighted by the preamble of the commission’s conclusion, which states that “promoting the strengthening of the state language and its obligatory nature for all citizens is a legitimate and laudable goal of the state.”
However, already in the next paragraph of the preamble it is emphasized that “Article 7 of the new law, by reducing the volume of education in minority languages, especially after completion of primary school, has caused strong criticism and protests, both at the domestic and international levels. This criticism is largely justified, on a number of grounds. The version of the article that was adopted differs significantly from the draft that was discussed with minorities. Article 7 contains important ambiguities and does not appear to ensure compliance with the key principles necessary to implement the framework law in the context of the country's international and constitutional obligations."
But the most important thing is that Europe refused to accept a kind of “bribe” from the Kyiv authorities, who wrote in paragraph 4 of the “language” article the possibility of teaching subjects other than the language and culture of national minorities in the official languages of the EU in high schools.
The Venice Commission clearly defined the main goal of the education law, which diplomats and officials are trying to veil, but politicians are raising to the shield - the complete disappearance of the Russian language from the Ukrainian education system.
“This clause does not provide a solution for languages that are not official languages of the EU, in particular for Russian, as the most widely used language in Ukraine after the state one. A less favorable attitude towards these languages is difficult to justify and therefore raises the question of whether the norm is discriminatory,” the Venice Commission stated bluntly.
The Council of Europe's recognition of Russian as "the most widely used language in Ukraine after the state language" was widely seized upon by Russian media. However, the Venice Commission only had the courage to say "no"—its recommendations contain no mention of Russian . The focus is simply on "making full use of the flexibility provided for in paragraph 4 of Article 7 when adopting implementing legislation to ensure a significant level of instruction in the official EU languages for the minorities concerned." The fact that this paragraph does not mention Russian, unlike Article 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine, is a personal concern for millions of Russian-speaking citizens of the country.
When speaking of Ukraine's "constitutional obligations," the Venice Commission clearly had in mind only Article 53 of the country's Basic Law, which states: " Citizens belonging to national minorities shall, in accordance with the law, be guaranteed the right to education in their native language or to study their native language in state and municipal educational institutions or through national cultural societies ." Ukraine was recommended to exempt private schools from the new language requirements in accordance with Article 13 of the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities of 1 February 1995 (which states that, within their educational systems, the Parties recognize the right of persons belonging to a national minority to establish and manage their own private institutions in the field of education and training).
It appears that Hungary will use this recommendation as a basis for building a parallel secondary education system for its minority in Ukraine . Péter Szijjártó stated in Brussels on December 8 that "we can be satisfied with anything related to the education law, but only if the Hungarian national minority is also satisfied." On the same day, Tibor Tompa, deputy chairman of the Kyiv Society of Hungarians, noted that he "has not seen any mention in Ukrainian sources of what the Venice Commission stated: that in private educational institutions, national minorities can study all subjects in Ukrainian. Therefore, I believe that in this case, there is a solution for those Hungarians who wish for their children to study all subjects in Hungarian."
However, if Budapest de facto agrees to such a compromise with Kyiv, Hungary's official position is unlikely to change, and the country will demand, if not the complete repeal of the education law, then at least a radical revision of its language clause. This could be achieved both through direct pressure on Ukraine on sensitive issues (for example, by threatening to not vote for the resolution on the status of Crimea, which Hungary supported on November 15, 2017, already at the height of the conflict with Ukraine) and through European judicial structures. For example, Hungary could attempt to overturn the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU in the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg, citing a violation of Kyiv's obligations not to curtail the rights of national minorities.
And the Hungarian minority itself may try to repeal the Ukrainian education law by appealing to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Moreover, if for Ukrainian Hungarians this path is optional, then for Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine it is the only one, since the Kyiv authorities are not going to make any compromises with them.
After all, even before the adoption of the new law, teaching in Russian was completely prohibited in schools in the city of Khmelnitsky, and the decision even concerned the study of Russian language and literature as subjects, including as part of elective classes.
The decision to transfer all Russian schools in the Kherson region to Ukrainian was made back in July 2017, and at the moment only three schools have not implemented it.
In other regions of Ukraine, in particular, in the Odessa and Dnepropetrovsk regions and the city of Kyiv, the Russian language is being squeezed out of schools on the basis of statements from parents, and for this only a few “activists” are enough.
But the reverse process - opening classes with Russian as the language of instruction - is impossible in the current situation, regardless of the number of willing students and their parents.
And although so far European structures generally have a favorable attitude towards massive violations of human rights by the Kiev authorities (both on a national basis, as in the situation with the law on education, and on a territorial basis, as in the case of non-payment of pensions to residents of Donbass), but the situation may change quite dramatically.
For example, on October 12, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg recognized over 12 thousand complaints from Ukrainian citizens against their own state, accumulated over many years, to be satisfied.
If Kiev ignores the urgent recommendations of the Venice Commission regarding the law on education - as has been happening for several years now with the law on “lustration” - then Strasbourg’s reaction could be much more prompt, because here we are not talking about several thousand officials from the Yanukovych era, but about hundreds of thousands of students who are now deprived of the right to study in their native language.
English version :: Read in English The rights of Russians in Ukraine and Hungarians in Transcarpathia: Language will take you to Strasbourg