Ukraine tables draft bill on minority schooling to open two EU negotiation clusters

"We have found a solution that simultaneously protects the Ukrainian language, grants explicit rights to national minorities and indigenous peoples, and eliminates one of the obstacles on Ukraine’s European integration path — specifically helping us unblock the opening of two negotiation clusters by lifting Hungary’s veto," Babak stated.

The legislative draft fulfills three concurrent strategic objectives:

• Safeguards Ukrainian as the state language of instruction;

• Defines explicit educational rights for indigenous peoples and national minorities;

• Advances Ukraine's mandatory compliance obligations for EU integration.

Babak emphasized that the bill directly facilitates the opening of two substantive accession chapters with Brussels once the Hungarian diplomatic blockage is resolved.

"The Ukrainian language remains the language of the educational process. The bill does not narrow its status, nor does it return the Russian language to the classroom," Babak stated.

The committee chairman clarified that the initiative specifically regulates the schooling rights of Ukraine's indigenous peoples and those national minorities whose mother tongues are official languages of the European Union.

Response from Budapest

Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar publicly responded to the bill's registration in the Verkhovna Rada, stating he expects the rights of Ukraine's ethnic Hungarian minority to be fully guaranteed in daily practice.

"Everyone has the right to education in their native language, and we expect that these rights will be fully respected and guaranteed in practice," Magyar stated.

Magyar noted that the legislation bolstering educational guarantees for Hungary's diaspora minority was introduced to Ukraine's parliament following several weeks of intensive bilateral consultations.