Commissioner: EU wants Ukrainian laws satisfactory for minorities

According to the European Commission, Ukraine's laws should be satisfactory for the ethnic minorities that are affected by them, the European commissioner for enlargement and neighbourhood policy told MTI on Wednesday, assessing his two-day visit to Ukraine. Oliver Varhelyi said he had met leaders of the local Hungarian, Romanian and Bulgarian minorities, as well as Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president. Zelensky appeared to be prepared to settle controversies around the laws concerned, he said. The minority leaders expressed concern over the language provisions of Ukraine's 2017 education law, the language law that took effect last summer and the law on secondary school education passed last month, Varhelyi said. The education laws increase the number of subjects to be taught in Ukrainian at higher grades in state and municipal minority schools. The language law makes the use of the Ukrainian language compulsory, with the exception of private conversations and religious services, practically in all public events.