The government commissioner for ethnic policy is visiting Transcarpathia

The head of the Regional State Administration Vasyl Hubal and the Regional Council Volodymyr Chubirko today met with the Government Commissioner for Ethnic Policy
Hennadiy Druzenko.

The Government Commissioner has been in Transcarpathia since Saturday. On Saturday he took part in memorial events to commemorate Transcarpathians, victims of Stalinist repression. Hennadiy Druzenko has already met with representatives of the Hungarian, Romanian, Romani communities.

 "I came not to inspect, I just wanted to see how national communities live in your land. European slogan "unity in diversity" describes the situation in Transcarpathia the best.  I am truly impressed by the national dialogue with the communities of your land. Of course, because of the war, our financial resources are limited. But in the current situation, when our heroes are defending the country, it is not very appropriate to hold national festivals and similar events. There are other ways of support that we will use," – Hennadiy Druzenko said.

At the same time, he assured that after signing an association agreement with the EU we can count on additional funding for new projects.

The Government Commissioner expressed his willingness to support ethnic policy related projects proposed by representatives of Transcarpathia.

Vasyl Hubal in turn assured that national minorities feel comfortable in our region. This is proved by their active participation in the public life of Transcarpathia.

The Regional Council Chairman Volodymyr Chubirko in turn said that due to the proximity to Europe Transcarpathia has the ability to not only learn from neighbors, but also to share its own experience. "We are multinational and multidenominational region. For centuries, there have been no conflicts here. People have never been discriminated on language and religion basis.Most of the residents of the region are villagers and they all have learnt to solve problems together, in the community. We have established contacts between local communities and local governments in Europe. Due to border traffic, we are also able to establish personal contacts. And such contacts between authorities, residents of different regions allow us to implement the best practices of ethnic policy" – the Chairman of the Regional Council Volodymyr Chubirko said.

At the meeting, they also agreed on the need to establish a working committee at the government level, which would study opportunities to improve methods of teaching Ukrainian language in schools for minorities – representatives of the Hungarian and the Romanian communities of Transcarpathia appealed with this request to the government commissioner for ethnic policy.