Krystian Kamiński: Realpolitik à la Orban

The second Ukrainian authorities have ceased to recognise as an autochthonous national minority. erstwhile again, in Poland, where quite a few politicians have a mouth full of phrases about caring for their countrymen abroad, barely anyone was curious in an issue of crucial importance for the Poles of the border, i.e. those who voluntarily did not leave Poland, but it was Poland that “left” from them after the Second planet War.

This deficiency of interest clearly corresponds to the fact that the restoration of national minorities to those rights that the Ukrainian rulers consistently took from them after the Majdan Revolution is not due to the actions of the 3rd Republic but to the politics of Hungary. They can now thank the end of Poles, not Warsaw. For Budapest, the situation of the Madzers in Ukraine, which is the majority of the inhabitants of Zakarpacie - in the municipalities at the present Hungarian border, is simply a priority, just as the countrymen on the erstwhile borderlands of the Crown of Saint Stefan, as I wrote here many times, are a priority.

The laws adopted by the ultimate Council of Ukraine after 2015 importantly reduced the rights of national minorities. 2 of them were peculiarly large lumps of salt in the Hungarian eye. The Education Act of 2017 provided that in all secondary schools (from the 5th grade) the only language of teaching should be Ukrainian (except for the schools of the Crimean Tatars and tiny cultural groups: Gagauz, Karaim and Crimeans). It was a provision for the applicable abolition of education with the Hungarian language of teaching functioning in Zakarpacie.

The Ukrainian "Law on securing the functioning of Ukrainian as a state language" practically eliminated number languages from the public sphere, narrowing down the right to usage them for private contacts, spiritual rites, cultural events with a closed number of participants, songs during performances. It is worth noting that the erstwhile Ukrainian Act of 2012 allowed number languages to be granted the position of the second authoritative position on a scale of districts (the equivalent of powiats) and even full circuits (the equivalent of voivodships).

Hungary's reaction was immediate. Since 2017, the Hungarian diplomacy has stated that there can be no mention of Ukraine's accession to the European Union in the event of specified treatment of national minorities, including Hungarian minorities. Since that year, Budapest has besides blocked talks about Ukraine's accession to NATO, not allowing the government to participate Ukraine to formal meetings of the Alliance at the highest level, which was loosed only after February 2022. The Hungarians consistently stood in this position despite the pressures of the US, the bodies of the European Union... and the government of the Law and Justice Union.

On Friday, it turned out that tough politics were delivering results. The amendments to the 7 Ukrainian laws are intended to warrant the right to usage in the educational process the language of a given national number alongside the state language, which is at least a safeguard of the Traquistic position of number schools. The work to teach in Ukrainian applies only to classes in state language, Ukrainian literature and history. Students of Ukrainian national minorities whose parent tongue is 1 of the authoritative EU languages who have already started education in general schools before 1 September 2018 have the right to proceed education in precisely the way they have learned so far. Private universities have the right to freely choose the language of the lecture, subject to the presence of Ukrainian.

The amendments introduce the anticipation of utilizing the languages of national minorities in electoral materials during the campaign. However, they are to be duplicated in Ukrainian. Publishing publications in Crimean-Tatar language, languages of the alleged indigenous population or national minorities of Ukraine, as well as in the languages of national minorities, which are authoritative languages of the EU, will be exempt from the work to issue at least 50% of titles in Ukrainian in a given year. It will besides be possible to broadcast broadcasts and programmes in the media in number languages, up to 70% of broadcasting time.

The fresh resolution of the ultimate Council so extends and clarifies the assumptions set out in the Act on Accession to the EU in September, which sets out the characteristics of national minorities – previously Ukrainian government denied all number groups, but the Crimean Tatars, the Karaims, the Gagauzes and the Crimeans, the designation of their autonomy (e.g. in accordance with the Law of 2021 on the Native Nationals of Ukraine). The September resolution opened the way for the improvement of a formal methodology for the usage of number languages in areas in their dense residence, where the language of national minorities should be allowed in parallel with the state language. By this law, the ultimate Council allowed national minorities to make their own media and besides allowed the beginning of specialised bookstores.

Of course, that's a bill. They leave a gap for the Ukrainianisation activities (an unclear approach about the bilingualism of schools) and it will be crucial to translate their provisions into implementing rules and yet into practice. So I think the Hungarians will wait to see the effects of the Friday decisions of the ultimate Council. However, in Budapest they can already celebrate the first triumph of their tough policy towards Kiev.

Finally, for comparison, I will compose how the Law and Justice government behaved in these cases. I do not callback him speaking on language rights in Ukraine. On the issue of the discrimination against the Ukrainian education law of 2017, respective days after its adoption, the Polish Ministry of abroad Affairs issued a message that this law “guarantees people belonging to cultural groups and national minorities the right to learn in national language alongside teaching in Ukrainian in kindergartens and general education”. The MFA besides considered that “At the same time, this provision contains a warrant concerning the right to teach national language in state and local discipline establishments or through national cultural and educational associations”.

Despite specified a declarative praise of the Ukrainian Act, the Law and Justice Government sent a period later to Kiev the then Minister of Education Anna Zalewski, who together with the then Minister of Education and discipline of Ukraine Lilija Hrynewycz signed a declaration concerning the right of Polish minorities in Ukraine and the Ukrainian number in Poland to teach native language and to learn in their native language. The paper without any binding force and containing the generals themselves was supplemented by the evidence that the fresh Ukrainian Education Act provides Poles in Ukraine with "conditions for learning their native language and learning their native language [...] in parallel with learning in the state language". Clearly, the Law and Justice were in line with what even the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, which took care of the issue mobilised by Hungary, did not fit.

It was only in October 2018 that then Undersecretary of State in the Polish Ministry of abroad Affairs Piotr Wawrzyk wrote in consequence to a parliamentary interpellation that "in 2017 the rights of the Polish number in Ukraine were peculiarly susceptible to the negative actions of Ukrainian authorities in the field of education", i.e. the other of the MFA and MEN were widely announced the year before. In April 2019, then Deputy Minister of abroad Affairs Marcin Przycz, after talks in Kiev, concluded that the non-binding declaration signed by Zalewski and the oral assurances of then Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Education Pawło Chobzeja, were to settle the matter.

So if Poles in Ukraine can learn in Polish to a large extent, then let them know that the law will be due to the government of Hungary, not the III Republic. The erstwhile showed us how to form relationships with Kiev, which only counts with tough political players. Realpolitik à la Viktor Orban School.