Ukraine passes minority schools law Hungary demanded
The Verkhovna Rada passed a law on minority education rights with 266 votes, Budapest's condition for new clusters. The Luxembourg conference is tomorrow.
Ukraine’s parliament on Monday, October 12, passed a law on the educational rights of minorities, a step Budapest has set for years as a condition for any further progress by Kyiv toward European Union membership. For the Western Balkans, it is a familiar lesson: a single member state can stall an entire candidacy over a bilateral dispute about the language used in schools, and the region knows how long such conditions can last. Two new negotiating clusters are expected to open in Luxembourg tomorrow.
Who voted for the law, and what does it say?
The Verkhovna Rada passed bill No. 16119 on the educational rights of indigenous peoples and members of national minorities as a whole. A total of 266 of 450 deputies voted in favor. According to figures carried by the Interfax-Ukraine agency, Servant of the People supplied 177 votes, European Solidarity 16, Trust 15 and Batkivshchyna 11. Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk signed the law right after the vote, and it now awaits the signature of President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Children from minority communities get the right to be taught in their mother tongue alongside Ukrainian, not instead of it. The additional rights apply only to official European Union languages and to the languages of Ukraine’s indigenous peoples, not to Russian, which, according to the Kyiv Independent, reflects Kyiv’s drive to remove Russian from public life.
A school receives the status of a national minority institution if at least 50 percent plus one of its pupils study in the minority language. The ministry estimates that 149 schools, about 1.2 percent of the total, meet that condition. The status is lost if the share of such pupils drops below 20 percent. Closing or merging municipal schools of this type will require the ministry’s consent, and the provision covers up to 141 schools in the Zakarpattia, Chernivtsi, Odesa and Lviv regions.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science said in a statement:
The Ukrainian language remains a guaranteed part of every child’s education.
Why was the law Budapest’s condition?
The rights of the Hungarian community in Zakarpattia have strained relations between Budapest and Kyiv for years. The figures vary: the Kyiv Independent says about 80,000 ethnic Hungarians live in the region, while Euronews puts it at about 100,000. Viktor Orban’s government had blocked Ukraine’s progress in accession talks since 2023.
After the April election, won by the Tisza party, Prime Minister Peter Magyar agreed an 11-point plan with Kyiv in June and lifted the veto, so the first clusters were opened over the summer. Budapest then made further progress conditional on passing this very law. Disputes continued even afterward: in September, Magyar and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha clashed over Hungary’s participation in Zelensky’s Carpathian Summit. Magyar objected that Hungary had been listed as a participant without his approval, and Sybiha accused him of repeating Orban’s rhetoric.
What is expected in Luxembourg?
Ambassadors of the 27 member states are due to state their position today, at a meeting of permanent representatives, on opening the new clusters. A European diplomat told the Kyiv Independent that, unless Budapest raises new objections at the vote, consensus is expected. The formal opening of cluster 2 (internal market) and cluster 3 (competitiveness and inclusive growth) is planned for the intergovernmental conference on October 13. Kyiv wants all six clusters opened by the end of the year.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orban welcomed the vote on X:
We welcome today’s important step by the Ukrainian parliament on minority education rights.
After meeting Sybiha in Luxembourg, she added: “Thank you to our Ukrainian partners. Let’s keep this momentum going!”
Sybiha said there is no better way to guarantee the rights and security of the Hungarian minority than Ukraine’s swift entry into the European Union. Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Vsevolod Chentsov wrote on X:
An important step toward ensuring human rights and advancing Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.
Magyar announced that his first bilateral meeting with Zelensky could take place at the European Council summit in Brussels on Thursday, October 15. That meeting had been postponed earlier, after Magyar made the talks conditional on progress on minority rights.
