Language policy in Ukraine


Language policy in Ukraine is based on its Constitution, international obligations, and since 16 July 2019 the law . From 2012 until February 2018, the language policy of Ukraine was also based on the law .
The Ukrainian language is the State language of Ukraine. According to the article 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine, the State has to ensure the comprehensive development and functioning of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of social life throughout the entire territory of Ukraine.
Other languages spoken in Ukraine are guaranteed constitutional protection. Russian is recognized as the language of a national minority.
A 2012 law, called the law "On the principles of the State language policy" gave the status of regional language to Russian and other minority languages. It allowed the use of minority languages in courts, schools and other government institutions in areas of Ukraine where the national minorities exceed 10% of the population. The law was used mostly in Ukraine's southern and eastern regions, where predominant or significant parts of the population speak Russian as their first language. Three minor settlements did the same for Hungarian, Moldovan and Romanian. Ukrainian remained the only official country-wide language. Introduction of the law was supported by the governing Party of regions and opposed by the opposition parties. According to its opponents the law undermined and supplanted the role of the Ukrainian language, and violated Article 10 of the Ukrainian Constitution.
The bill was adopted amid fistfights in the Ukrainian Parliament building on 3 July 2012, and the opposition said that the procedure of adopting the law was not respected. The law came into force on 10 August 2012. Since then various cities and regions of Ukraine declared Russian a regional language in their jurisdictions. Other cities and regions declared their opposition to this law. Immediately after the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, on 23 February 2014, the Ukrainian Parliament voted to repeal the law. This decision was vetoed by the acting President Oleksandr Turchynov, who instead ordered drafting of a new law to "accommodate the interests of both eastern and western Ukraine and of all ethnic groups and minorities." However, in October 2014 the Constitutional Court of Ukraine started reviewing the constitutionality of the law, and on 28 February 2018 it ruled the law unconstitutional.
In April 2019, the Ukrainian parliament voted a new law,. On 16 June 2019, the law entered into force.

Overview

Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the independence of Ukraine, the Russian language has dwindled, but remains one of the two most used languages for business, legal proceedings, science, artistry, and many other spheres of everyday life. According to the 2001 census, 67.5% of the citizens of Ukraine regarded Ukrainian as their native language, with Russian being considered the native language for another 29.6%. Various other languages constitute the remaining 2.9%. During the Soviet era, both Russian and Ukrainian had official status as State languages of the Ukrainian SSR.
Supporters of the bill argued it would make life easier for Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Opponents fear adoption of Russian as a minority language could spread rapidly, challenging Ukrainian and causing splits between eastern and western Ukraine. In practice Russian is already used widely in official establishments in Ukraine.
According to the article #27 it is necessary to translate Ukrainian place names into other languages using only Ukrainian transcription.
On 9 February 2013 the authors of the 2012 language law, Serhiy Kivalov and Vadym Kolesnichenko, were awarded the "Medal of Pushkin" by Russian President Vladimir Putin for "great contribution to the preservation and promotion of the Russian language and culture abroad".

Bill "On the principles of the State language policy"

Analysis

V. Kolesnichenko, one of the authors of the law, refers to its support from various higher education bodies, scientists and NGOs.
Some say that the bill contradicts the Constitution of Ukraine, violates the Budget Code, and aims to annihilate the Ukrainian language. It suffered a criticism in the conclusions of state authorities and their departments: the Main Scientific-Expert Bureau of the Ukrainian Parliament, the Parliamentary Committee on Culture and Spirituality, the Parliamentary Committee on Budget, Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Justice. The bill also failed to obtain the support of the specialized institutions of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine: the Linguistics Institute, the Institute of the Ukrainian Language, the Institute of political and ethno-national researches, the Shevchenko Institute of Literature, the Institute of State and Law, the Ukrainian linguistic-informational Fund, the Philology Institute of Kiev University, and the Academy of Sciences of the High School of Ukraine.

Opinion adopted by the Venice Commission

In December 2011 the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe issued its Opinion on the draft law. According to Ukrayinska Pravda, the Venice Commission did not notice in the draft law of Kolesnichenko any guarantees of the protection of the Ukrainian language and later came to a decision that the bill is another "pre-election tool" for the Party of Regions. V. Kolesnichenko, one of the authors of the law, claimed the 2011 analysis of the Venice Commission was "generally supportive". The opponents noted that the analysis contained strong criticism, specifically about the failure to protect the role of Ukrainian as the State language.
In its Opinion, the Venice Commission stated, among other theses:
The Opinion also made other observations and proposals of change. It was of the view that "further improvements, increased guarantees and more substantial changes to the normative content of the Draft should be introduced..."

Fight in parliament

Prior to 24 May 2012 there were rumors that a revision of the legislation on languages would take place in parliament and that the Secretary of National Security and Defense would attend the session. Some 1,000 protesters gathered just outside the Verkhovna Rada building setting up another tent city. State law enforcement warned the protesters not to establish a tent city. The protesters were yelling in Ukrainian "Get busy with work, not a tongue". Some posters carried the slogan: "The problem is in poverty, not in language".
At the evening session the parliamentary opposition in the Verkhovna Rada blocked the main tribune in parliament as some representatives from the Party of Regions surrounded the presidium. The speaker was forced to announce a break in the session. After the break Member of Parliament Vyacheslav Kyrylenko read a statement of the united opposition not to conduct any hearings regarding language issues. After the law draft #10154 "On the state language of Ukraine" was not adopted onto the daily agenda, Kyrylenko withdrew his draft #9059 "Prohibition of narrowing the sphere of use of Ukrainian language" from a revision, while Kolesnichenko gave a presentation on his draft #9073. The head of the Committee On Issues of Culture and Spirituality Volodymyr Yavorivsky disclosed the decision of the committee to reject the bill #9073 as it was the decision of the committee's majority. He pointed to the fact that the law draft in fact will introduce a bilingual situation in number of regions. However, after a review the bill was supported by the parliamentary majority which showed its support in adopting two state languages: Ukrainian and Russian. The parliamentary minority and the deputy group "Reforms for the Future" stayed in opposition to the bill. Parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn was forced to hastily close the session as further discussion descended into another fight leaving some members of parliament injured.
The Party of Regions released a statement to the press where it accused the opposition of denying the adaptation of a bill that protects some constitutional rights of millions of citizens of Ukraine. PoR leader in parliament Yefremov promised to revisit the issue once everything is stable.

Implementation

The bill was to come into force only after it was signed by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and the Chairman of Parliament. But the Chairman of Parliament Volodymyr Lytvyn tendered his resignation on 4 July 2012. However, the Verkhovna Rada twice held votes of confidence in the speaker, and did not accept his resignation. On 31 July Lytvyn signed the law. The bill was signed by President Yanukovych on 8 August 2012. The law came into force on 10 August 2012. Since then various Ukrainian cities and regions have declared Russian a regional language in their jurisdictions, these being the municipalities of Odessa, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhia, Sevastopol, Dnipropetrovsk, Luhansk and Krasny Luch; and the Oblasts of Odessa, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk. Hungarian has been made a regional language in the town of Berehove in the Zakarpattia Oblast, Moldovan in the village of Tarasivtsi, and Romanian in the village of Bila Tserkva; also in the Zakarpattia Oblast. These languages will now be used in city/Oblast administrative office work and documents. As of September 2012 there were no plans for such bilingualism in Kiev. Chairman of the Supreme Council of Crimea Volodomyr Konstantinov stated in March 2013 that the August 2012 law had changed nothing in Crimea.

Repeal of the law

On February 23, 2014, the second day after the flight of Viktor Yanukovich, while in a parliamentary session, a deputy from the "Batkivshchina" party, Vyacheslav Kyrylenko, moved to include in the agenda a bill to repeal the 2012 law "On the principles of the state language policy". The motion was carried with 86% of the votes in favour—232 deputies in favour vs 37 opposed against the required minimum of 226 of 334 votes. The bill was included in the agenda, immediately put to a vote with no debate and approved with the same 232 voting in favour. The bill would have made Ukrainian the sole state language at all levels. Still, all the minority languages remain explicitly protected under article 10 of the Ukrainian Constitution. The repeal would also bring back into force the previous law on languages, which was in place in Ukraine for 23 years before July 2012 and was regulating the use of the minority languages. According to Uilleam Blacker, the repeal bill contained no specific threat to the Russian language.
However the move to repeal the 2012 law "On the principles of the state language policy" provoked negative reactions in Crimea and in some regions of Southern and Eastern Ukraine. It became one of the topics of the protests against the new government approved by the parliament after the flight of Viktor Yanukovich. In this context, the next major development was the Crimean crisis.
Passage of the repeal bill was met with regret by the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe. The OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities expressed concern over possible further unrest. He also proposed to give advice and facilitate discussions on new legislation, declaring that "we must avoid the mistakes made last time when unbalanced legislation was adopted without a proper dialogue in the Verkhovna Rada." The bill was also criticized by the Ambassador for Human Rights of the Russian foreign ministry. Bulgarian and Romanian foreign ministers evaluated it as a step in the wrong direction, and the Greek foreign minister expressed disappointment. The Hungarian foreign ministry expressed serious concerns, noting that the decision "could question the commitment of the new Ukrainian administration towards democracy". The Polish foreign minister called it a mistake.
After urgently ordering a working group to draft a replacement law on February 27, acting President Oleksandr Turchynov declared on 3 March that he will not be signing the repeal bill until a replacement law is adopted. Since then the repeal bill is not signed, but not vetoed by the President, its current status is "ready for sign".
On 7 April 2014 former BYuT leader Yulia Tymoshenko stated she supported the 2012 language law.
On 3 November 2014, newly elected president Petro Poroshenko declared that the language policy in Ukraine will be amended.
On 10 July 2014 57 parliamentary deputies appealed the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to review the 2012 law "On the principles of the state language policy". On 10 October 2014 the court opened the proceedings on the constitutionality of the law. On 14 December 2016 the Constitutional Court ended the oral proceedings and on 13 January 2017 moved to the closed part of the process. On 28 February 2018 the Constitutional Court of Ukraine ruled the law unconstitutional.

2016 law

In 2016, a New rule came into force requiring Ukraine's radio stations to play a quota of Ukrainian-language songs each day. The law also requires TV and radio broadcasters to ensure 60% of programs such as news and analysis are in Ukrainian.

Ukraine's 2017 Education Law

Ukraine's 2017 education law will make Ukrainian the required language of study in state schools from the fifth grade on, although it allows instruction in other languages as a separate subject, to be phased in in 2023. Since 2017, the Hungary–Ukraine relations rapidly deteriorated over the issue of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine. According to the New Europe:

Lviv Oblast

Unian reported that "A ban on the use of cultural products, namely movies, books, songs, etc., in the Russian language in the public has been introduced" in the Lviv Oblast in September 2018. Critics called the law ill-defined, illegal, and unconstitutional, and a successful January 2019 court challenge by the Chuhuiv Human Rights Group was dismissed on technical grounds in May, and could lead to a complaint before the European Court of Human Rights.

Law "On provision of the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the State language"

First vote

On 4 October 2018, the Ukrainian parliament voted with a majority of 261 MPs in the first reading of a new language law. Thereafter, the bill "was prepared for second reading for about four months. During this time, the Verkhovna Rada's committee on culture and spirituality worked out over 2,000 amendments to the document that were proposed by people's deputies. In particular, the document proposes creating the national commission on the standards of the state language and introducing the post of commissioner for the protection of the state language. Lawmakers started considering the document at second reading on February 28. The Verkhovna Rada continue to review amendments to the bill during March 12-15 ." The Council of Europe asked the Verkhovna Rada to postpone the adoption of the bill until the post-election period.

Second vote and signature

On 25 April 2019, the Ukrainian parliament adopted the law. However, on the same day Pro-Russian members of the Ukrainian Parliament blocked the chairman, Andriy Parubiy, from signing it by introducing two draft resolutions to repeal the law. "If parliament d not support these resolutions, Andriy Parubiy ha the right to sign the law and forward it to the President of Ukraine to get his signature on it." In total, four appeals to cancel the law were submitted, and it was planned that the parliament would vote on those on 14 May 2019. Parubiy declared that after the parliament will have rejected those appeals, he will sign the law and that the Ukrainian President will sign it "without delay." Patriarch Filaret and former Ukrainian President Yushchenko were present in the parliament during the vote.
Poroshenko called the adoption of the law by the Ukrainian parliament "a historic decision" and said he would sign the law as soon as he receives it from the parliament. Poroshenko also said that the law "would not have been approved without Andriy Parubiy".
Parliament chairman Parubiy signed the law on 14 May 2019, after the four draft bills to cancel the bill n. 5670-d were rejected by the Ukrainian parliament. Parubiy said that the law "will be signed by the president of Ukraine in the coming hours or days." On 15 May 2019, President Poroshenko, in his last week in office, signed the law.

Analysis

The law regulates the Ukrainian language "in the media, education, and business. It aims to strengthen the language’s role in a country where much of the public still speaks Russian."

Reactions

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said the law was "unacceptable" and part of an "anti-Hungarian policy".
The European Commission intends to study and give its assessment to the law. On 22 May 2019, the Chair of the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe asked the Venice Commission to analyze the law.
The court of Kiev declined the appeal from an NGO to ban Andriy Parubiy from signing the law and to ban the law's publication.
Russia asked the President of the UN Security Council to convene a meeting over the adoption by Ukraine's parliament of the law.