BUDAPEST, Oct 2 (Reuters) – Hungary welcomed on Friday Ukraine’s move to submit draft legislation to parliament that strengthens the education rights of its ethnic Hungarian minority.
A long-running dispute over minority rights had strained ties between Budapest and Kyiv and complicated Hungary’s support for Ukraine’s ambition to join the European Union.
“The bill strengthens the legal guarantees of education in the Hungarian language, and the network of educational institutions,” Prime Minister Peter Magyar said in a Facebook post.
Magyar has taken a less confrontational stance towards Kyiv than his predecessor Viktor Orban, but he too has said that progress on boosting the rights of some 100,000 ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine is a prerequisite for Budapest’s backing of Ukraine’s EU accession.
Hungary’s Foreign Minister Anita Orban – no relation of the former prime minister – said on Friday that Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Vsevolod Chentsov had informed her that the bill on education rights would be submitted to the Ukrainian parliament with a decision expected this month.
“We welcome this step, which was preceded by bilateral Hungarian-Ukrainian expert-level talks in recent weeks and consultations with representatives of the Transcarpathian Hungarian community,” Orban wrote in a Facebook post.
This step follows a June announcement from Magyar that Hungary and Ukraine had reached an agreement on the language, cultural and educational rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine.
At the time Magyar said that once Ukraine enshrines the terms of that agreement in legislation, as well as its action plan for its EU accession talks, Hungary would support the opening of the first cluster of Ukraine’s accession talks.
Magyar has repeatedly said his government does not support accelerated membership talks for Ukraine.
(Reporting by Krisztina Than and Anita KomuvesEditing by Gareth Jones)
