The European Parliament has called on Ukraine to respect the rights of national minorities and implement the recommendations of the Venice Commission on the Education Law. This is stated in the EP resolution adopted on February 11
According to the resolution, the European Parliament “takes note of the law supporting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language, asks the Ukrainian authorities to fully respect their international obligations and the recommendations contained in the opinion No 960/2019 of the Venice Commission, i.e. to respect the right of national minorities to develop and fully use their language and to act with the highest degree of care and balance with regard to national minorities, their language and their right to education”.
The EP also called on Ukraine to give the language ombudsman the power to monitor the rights of national minorities and indigenous peoples. Or to create a special body for this purpose.
“The European Parliament supports freedom of belief, opinion and expression and underlines the importance of ensuring equal access of all national, ethnic and linguistic minorities to information as an essential component of any democracy; condemns hate speech and discrimination based on ethnicity or language as well as fake news and disinformation targeting national, ethnic and linguistic minorities”, – the document said.
The EP is also concerned about the lack of appropriate actions on the part of the Ukrainian authorities to combat discrimination and hate speech against ethnic minorities.