Ukraine's Deputy PM is confident that Venice Commission's ambiguous decision on national minorities will not hinder progress to EU

Olha Stefanishyna, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, believes that the Venice Commission's negative opinion on the law on national minorities will not affect the position of the EU leaders on Ukraine's further progress towards membership.

Source: Stefanishyna on Friday on air during the 24/7 national joint newscast, reported by European Pravda

Details: Commenting on the Venice Commission’s opinion, which requires Ukraine to provide guarantees for the protection of the rights of the Russian minority, the Deputy Prime Minister said that Kyiv had repeatedly explained its approach to the Council of Europe, but "unfortunately, our comments were not heard".

At the same time, she mentioned that other laws that have been approved by the EU – namely, media and advertising legislation – already include steps to counter Russian propaganda in a similar way to the legislation on national minorities.

Quote: "Obviously, decisions regarding Ukraine's membership in the EU are always made by politicians. These are political decisions. And obviously, none of the leaders of free Europe will insist that we pay attention to the Russian language." 

"Moreover, I would like to draw attention to the fact that there is no such thing as a ‘Russian national minority’ in Ukraine, because it was not a subject of interest of the Russian Federation itself, neither in Ukraine nor in other countries of the post-Soviet camp."

More details: The Deputy Prime Minister stressed that Ukraine's position on the "Russian minority" is supported by other leaders, and Kyiv believes that problematic issues that are not political in nature "can be resolved through government and parliamentary decisions".

On 12 June, the Venice Commission issued a critical opinion on Ukraine's Law on National Minorities (Communities), the adoption of which was mentioned among the European Commission's recommendations for candidate status.

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