On Friday, December 8, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a bill amending the laws on national minority rights, taking into account the recommendations of Council of Europe experts. Earlier in the day, the Verkhovna Rada approved the document, which, among other things, tightens restrictions on the use of the Russian language.
According to Rada member Oleksiy Honcharenko on his Telegram channel, this bill provides for the easing of the provisions of previously adopted laws for national minorities "whose languages are official languages of the European Union."
24 languages have the status of official languages of the European Union: Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Irish, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Hungarian, Hungarian, French, Swedish, and Portuguese.
The use of minority languages that are EU languages is allowed, in particular, in private schools and universities, minority classes, media and election campaigning. At the same time, it is mandatory to learn Ukrainian or duplicate information in Ukrainian.
Publishers that publish books in Crimean Tatar and in indigenous and minority languages of the official EU languages are exempt from the 50% Ukrainian language quota. For TV broadcasters that broadcast in EU languages in addition to Ukrainian, a quota of 30% or more of Ukrainian is established.
All of these changes do not apply to Russian as "the language of a state that has been recognized by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine as an aggressor or occupying state," according to the draft law. Restrictions on the use of Russian become indefinite.
The text of the document reads as follows:
"Restrictions on national minority languages that are the state (official) language of a state that has been recognized by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine as an aggressor state or an occupying state are transferred from the final and transitional provisions of the laws of Ukraine to the body of the documents, and therefore will not have a time limit."
Ukraine's adoption of the law on national minorities was one of the requirements of the European Commission as part of its candidate status for EU membership.
Background. As reported, the Rada has passed a law on minority rights, which is necessary for the start of negotiations on Ukraine's accession to the EU.