BRUSSELS – NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has recommended that Kyiv fully implement the Venice Commission recommendations on a new Ukrainian law to make possible future meetings of the NATO-Ukraine Commission — currently blocked by Hungary.
Stoltenberg and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin discussed the issue during their meeting in Brussels on Oct. 15
Hungary has been obstructing Ukraine’s efforts to draw closer to the European Union and NATO in protest at Ukraine’s new education law, which stipulates that public schools teach classes in Ukrainian, not in the languages of minorities.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said the measure discriminates against the more than 100,000 ethnic Hungarians who live in Ukraine, mainly in the western Zakarpattya Oblast. Ukraine and Hungary have negotiated over the matter, but with no results so far.
Tensions between Kyiv and Budapest flared again when the Ukrainian authorities released a video showing the Hungary’s consulate in Berehove in Zakarpattya Oblast issuing Hungarian passports to Ukrainian citizens. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said it would send a note to Hungary on Oct. 4 on the expulsion of the Hungarian consul in Berehove.
For the moment, all meetings of the NATO-Ukraine Commission — the key format for bilateral cooperation between Ukraine and NATO — are blocked at all levels above that of ambassadors.
According to the Ukrainian Mission to the NATO, Klimkin agreed that the dispute would have to be resolved if the work of the commission were to go ahead as before.
He said Ukraine’s goal was “to guarantee equal rights to the inhabitants of Zakarpattya Oblast, and create conditions for their full development as citizens of Ukraine, while supporting their language, traditions, and culture.”
Klimkin and Stoltenberg also discussed security challenges shared by NATO member states and Ukraine, in particular, the security situation in the Black and Azov Seas. Stoltenberg said NATO’s enhanced advanced presence in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, the creation of new military structures, and the alliance members’ significant increase in defense spending are a clear response by NATO to Russia’s growing aggressiveness.
