Village council of Transcarpathian region will write to the Cabinet in Romanian

Ukraine is reaping the fruits the of so-called "language law" by which Russian received the status of regional in eight regions of the country and eleven cities. Later members of Beregovo District Council in Transcarpathia gave regional status to Hungarian language. Recently, a similar decision on Romanian language was adopted by the village council of Bila Tserkva (Rakhiv district of Transcarpathian region).

"Here, 99.9 percent of the population speak Romanian. Even before the adoption of the decision sessions of the village council and meetings had been conducted both in Romanian and in Ukrainian. But now it is possible, thanks to the new law, to conduct official correspondence with public authorities in Romanian – says the village head of Bila Tserkva Yuri Berindye. – I am convinced that the administration of correspondence in Romanian will not cause any additional costs for the village. It is clear that the funds would be required at the regional level and in the capital."

Mr. Berindye does not see any problem that many of their addressees do not understand Romanian. And if they do not understand it at higher levels of government in Kyiv, which the village council officially corresponds with, he advises to engage translators.    

Political scientist never tire of repeating: the above-mentioned decision of local authorities – both on Russian and languages ​​of other minorities – are a direct threat to the integrity of the state.

"The whole process has no practical basis – only political. There has not been any monitoring, no public debate, no public opinion polls. Nobody thought about the consequences – says Lviv historian Ruslan Zabily. – The wave of decisions on the status of the regional language by number of local councils threatens not only to split the country, but to cause the escalation within society. I am sure if the government will continue to support these processes, sooner or later it will lead to ethnic hatred."

Yet yesterday the Party of Regions went further by registering in parliament a bill designed to set the Russian equal to the state language. Document number 11 243, which, inter alia, envisages that "the texts of legislative acts, official announcements, notices of central government shall be executed in the state and Russian languages" was registered by a Party of Regions member Oleksandr Chernomorov.

Ukraina moloda