Ivan Baloga: “Society is being artificially divided with the “language” law”

Candidate in constituency number 73 Ivan Baloga during the meeting with teachers of Beregovo commented on the fact that some local councils in Transcarpathia implement certain provisions of the "language" law." The position of our team is clear: the only official language is Ukrainian. If Parliament wanted to implement the provisions of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, they should have had also to pay attention to the protection of minority languages, but not give the prerogative to the Russian language. It is that language the law was written for. Who prohibited use of the Hungarian language in Beregovo including in public institutions? Nobody ever! Mayor Gajdos in 2006 appealed to the regional authorities that on the city council inscriptions in Hungarian would be made, Hungarian flag along with the Ukrainian would be hung. No one banned it. Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks, Russians in our region have their schools and kindergartens. Regional Council adopted the "Program of development of education, culture and traditions of minorities in the region for 2011-2015", for which more than four million was allocated. In Transcarpathia nobody has ever prevented national communities to communicate in their native language. But manipulations around the "language" issue, as it is now are unacceptable. Before the election, they want to split the society with the "language" law. Ruling party loses popularity, and with such steps they try to mobilize voters in the East and in the South" – summed up the politician.