Europe Outraged By Kiev’s Internal Education Reforms
An international scandal around the new Ukrainian law on education is gathering pace. Hungary advised Ukraine to forget about the European future. Hungarian Foreign Minister, Péter Szijjártó, said that Ukraine "stabbed Hungary in the back," and promised to block all further decisions of the European Union aimed at a rapprochement with Kiev.
The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, canceled his visit to Ukraine scheduled for October, and refused to receive Verkhovnaya Rada speaker, Andrei Parubiy, in Bucharest. A letter of protest signed by the foreign ministers of Romania, Hungary, Greece, and Bulgaria was sent to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.
Now the proverb "Your tongue will get you anywhere" sounds mocking for millions of Ukrainian citizens who speak Russian, Hungarian, Belarusian, Moldovan, and other regional languages. The document, in fact, prohibits national schools. Lessons in the country's educational institutions will be held only in Ukrainian.
Next year teaching subjects in the languages of national minorities will be canceled after the 5th grade. After 2020, education in native languages will be completely banned in primary schools, too.
Meanwhile, today about 400,000 Romanians live in Ukraine, as well as 275,000 Belarusians and the same number of Moldovans, more than 150,000 Hungarians, almost 180,000 Bulgarians, about 150,000 Poles. According to the latest census in Ukraine, almost half of Ukrainian citizens speak Russian. It's been less than a week since the scandalous law on education came into force, but the international coalition of several European countries has already been forged to protect the rights of national minorities.
Péter Szijjártó, Hungary's Foreign Minister: "150,000 Hungarians live in Ukraine today. We consider the latest decision of the Ukrainian authorities to be very unfriendly. I can even say that it is shameful to see how such a law is adopted in the country that wants to join the European integration. As I see it, this regulatory measure violates the EU-Ukraine association agreement, which clearly indicates that any infringement on the rights of ethnic minorities is unacceptable. In addition, this decision violates the basic Ukrainian-Hungarian agreement. It is obvious to us that we should do our best to ensure that this law is postponed or canceled".
By adopting the new law, the Ukrainian authorities expected that it would lead to the country's being included in the European educational space. In essence, the new law on education, and notably its 7th article, provides for the complete elimination of national schools, completely depriving the ethnocultural communities that don't belong to the so-called "titular people" of Ukraine of the possibility to get professional and higher education in their native language. Simply put, the right to education is denied to more than 300,000 Russian-speaking students, about 20,000 Hungarian and the same number of Romanian pupils, about 3,000 Moldovans, almost 2,000 Polish pupils.
There's no question of education's quality, since next year's graduates won't be able to take exams in their native language. In Transcarpathia, where Hungarians live, people speak Ukrainian only a little or don't speak at all. The Ministry of Education states that in 2016 60% of the pupils of Romanian and Hungarian schools failed the external independent testing, a Ukrainian analogue of Russia's Unified State Exam.
Yuri Polyakov, writer: "The fact is that the modern Ukrainian language, which is supposed to be used in education, is a language which is now being formed. The fact is that over the past 25 years of independence common words in the Russian and Ukrainian languages have been massively replaced by new words. They were looked for in various dictionaries, taken from other languages, sometimes invented. One form of entertainment of the enlightened part of the Ukrainian society, ethnic Ukrainians, was that they exchanged news of this invention of the language: "Do you know how this or that is called in Ukrainian now?" The newly-invented word would be pronounced, and everybody would laugh. Frankly speaking, I have no idea how they're going to use this language in people's education. But one would stop at nothing for political purposes".
It is clear that today all decisions of Kiev fit into the ideological scheme: "Every day try to harm the eastern neighbor". It's no secret that in Ukraine the language is serving as an ideological marker now. Expressing their political preferences, they either "speak" it or "rozmovlyayut". So the scandalous education law aims primarily at the Russian-speaking population. And they might have just forgotten about other minorities living in Ukraine or have not expected such a backlash in Europe and in the western parts of Ukraine. Though, the unrest in the Carpathians may turn out more painful than the situation in the Donbass.
However, the ultimatum statements made the EU recommend that Kiev send the law to the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe advisory body for constitutional law, which analyzes if the laws of the member states comply with the "European standards" of democracy.
The Venice Commission's opinion on the article on the language of the education law are expected by the end of autumn, though experts believe it would be more legitimate to implement the law after the European commission conclusion is issued.
Péter Szijjártó: "I gave clear instructions to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry, stressing that we must oppose any proposals or conclusions that could have a positive effect on Ukraine's position in its negotiations with the EU. We'll stick to this policy unless the law is withdrawn. We sent a letter to the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, as well as to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe".
In turn, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe summoned the Ukrainian Minister of Education to talk about languages, thus assuming the role of a mediator in Ukraine's relations with Europe.
Mikhail Pogrebinsky, political scientist: "I, for one, expected the President to take a break, find a way not to sign it, but he did sign it. This indicates that he gives more credence to the approval of the US Embassy than to the tough reaction of the neighbors".
Experts say that the law not only doesn't comply with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but also violates the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The document prescribes to eliminate any unjustified restrictions on the use of the regional and minority languages.
Having signed the Charter and adopting the law "About the principles of the state language policy," once in 2 years Ukraine reports to Europe on how it protects regional and minority languages in all spheres of life, from education and medicine to geographical names. Assuming that under Article 24 of Ukraine's Constitution, Ukrainian citizens, regardless of ethnocultural and linguistic identity, enjoy equal constitutional rights and freedoms, are equal before the law, along with other citizens pay taxes to maintain state and municipal educational institutions.
Each language is great and self-valuable, it is a "living organism" that changes, develops, becomes obsolete, borrows. Defending the "purity" of the Ukrainian language, they shouldn't forget that the languages of Ukraine’s current national minorities contributed a lot to the formation of the modern Ukrainian language, like Polish, for example.
For example, Swedish in Finland, spoken by about 4% of the population, enjoys equal rights with the Finnish language. In Belgium, the French and Flemish languages are completely equal, with German, spoken by a small percentage of the population, also has the status of an official language.
The multilingualism of Ukraine has always been a sign of strength, not weakness. And the very name of Ukraine derives from the word "edge", that is, simply "country," "the land inhabited by the people", and "a Ukrainian" meant "a compatriot".