Ukraine crisis – The Language law withdrawal to hurt Hungarians

Budapest, February 24 (MTI) – While withdrawing Ukraine’s language law was primarily an anti-Russian move, it hurts the Hungarian community as well, Miklos Kovacs, the head of the Cultural Association of Hungarians in Transcarpathia, told Monday’s Magyar Hirlap daily.

Although its withdrawal has no direct impact since the language law had yet not been enforced, “everything will now swing to a nationalist side and Hungarians are bound to suffer,” he told the paper.

Istvan Gajdos, the only Hungarian lawmaker in Ukraine’s parliament, said on Sunday that the scrapping of the country’s law on minority languages would hurt minorities.

He urged Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi to raise their voice in the interest of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine.

He said the 2012 language law adopted in Ukraine had been progressive legislation which ensured regional status for several languages in Ukraine, including Hungarian.

Photo: MTI

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters