Ukraine education law – Ukrainian foreign minister visits Hungary

Hungary and Ukraine have “completely different” positions concerning Ukraine’s recent education proposal which would deprive older students from ethnic minorities of education in their mother tongue, the Hungarian foreign minister said on Thursday after talks with his Ukrainian counterpart in Budapest. 

Péter Szijjártó said Ukraine’s Hungarian community did not support the contested package.

“Hungary does not want a fight but an agreement,” he said.

Hungarians in Transcarpathia/Kárpátalja, in western Ukraine, should be handed back their rights, he added.

“As long as the local Hungarian community is unhappy with the situation” Hungary will insist on its decision not to support Ukraine in international organisations, Szijjártó said. Provisions which affect the Hungarian minority should be dropped, he added.

Szijjarto said that

the new law, under which the language of tuition in secondary schools and higher education would be exclusively Ukrainian, was like “a stab in the back” for Hungary,

which had “taken a number of risky decisions” to help Ukraine. For example, he mentioned Hungarian gas supplies to Ukraine, treating injured Ukrainian soldiers in Hungary, various aid programmes, and

Hungary’s encouraging the EU to grant a visa-free status to entrants from Ukraine. 

The minister said that further draft amendments affecting minorities submitted to the Ukrainian parliament on Monday, would jeopardise the existence of 71 schools for the Hungarian minority. He added that the package was in conflict with the EU-Ukraine association agreement, and said that Hungary would request a review of the agreement next Monday.