Hungary blocks the meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission
For the third time, Hungary vetoed the meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission at the level of foreign ministers, Ukrinform reports.
The Hungarian government is apparently making good on its promise to apply "pressure" on Kyiv until it changes the law on education that was passed in autumn. Hungary believes that the newly-adopted law violates the rights of national minorities to study in their languages.
At the beginning of the year, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said that the country will "refuse to support Ukraine in all its EU integration."
In late March, he said that Budapest also intends to block the participation of Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko in the July NATO summit.
On September 28th the Ukrainian law "On Education" came into effect. It provides for a 12-year education in state schools and the increase of the use and instruction in the Ukrainian language.
The newer law provides that children who go to schools on September 1, 2018 will have an opportunity to study in their native language only in elementary school or the first four years. From the fifth grade, all subjects have to be taught in Ukrainian.
The document has caused sharp criticism by some countries, in particular, Hungary and Romania. In Russia, it was called "an act of the ethnocide of the Russian people in Ukraine."