PACE appeals to Venice Commission on Transcarpathian Hungarians

Hungary's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó reported this. 

“On the Hungarian-Romanian initiative, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has addressed the Venice Commission on the regulation of minorities in Ukraine. Now the chairman of the Commission has informed me that the requested opinion will be ready by the beginning of June,” Szijjártó said.

According to the Hungarian-language Transcarpathian Karpathir newspaper, in Strasbourg, Szijjártó said that according to the law adopted at the end of last year, minority schools in Ukraine will virtually cease to exist from September 2023.

According to Szijjártó, there are currently 99 primary and secondary schools in Ukraine that function as Hungarian ethnic educational institutions. Under the new law, they will become state schools instead of minority schools. In addition, a decree will come into force that will gradually reduce the share of classes in Hungarian to 40 percent starting in the fourth grade, and will abolish final exams, admission and vocational training in the national language.

• In January, a scandal erupted in Hungary when Hungarian flags were taken down in two villages in Transcarpathia. A few days later, the Hungarian newspaper Pesti Sracok published a report in the style of Russian propaganda about the repressions and brutal mobilization of Hungarians in Transcarpathia (Zakarpattia).

• On January 26, the head of the Transcarpathian Regional Military Administration, Viktor Mykyta, said that Ukrainian Hungarians were being used as targets for manipulation and hostile propaganda.

• The harassment of Hungarians was reported by Judita Petei, a member of the Hungarian KMKS party, who posted a map on her Facebook page depicting Transcarpathia in the colors of the Hungarian flag, which was quickly removed.