“Ukraine has only one official language, and that’s that”

This is the bottom line of an SDPU(o) statement, On the adoption of a new law On Languages in Ukraine, signed by faction leader Oleksandr ZINCHENKO. In part, it reads that the standing law On Languages adopted back in then-Soviet Ukraine is not in line with the Constitution of Ukraine. Some of its clauses are inconsistent or markedly outdated. To illustrate, one of the clauses declares the Russian language as “the language of international communication between the peoples of the Soviet Union.” Under Article 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine, Ukrainian is the officially spoken language, while Russian and other languages spoken by national minorities are guaranteed protection, unimpeded dissemination, and usage. Still the discrepancy between the two should be eliminated. “Ukraine has only one official language, the Ukrainian language, and that’s that,” the statement reads. The law has to underscore the declared guarantees of unimpeded diffusion, since until this is done local authorities will freely interpret the clauses of the Constitution to serve their ends. As a result, Ukrainian- speaking citizens will see their rights infringed upon in the country’s south and east, Russian-speaking citizens in the west, and representatives of national minorities in the regions of their compact settlement. The United Social Democrats believe the new law will bring our legislation into conformity with the requirements of international law, which defines the choice of language as each citizen’s personal affair. “We are positive that the adoption of the law is a legal issue and not a political one, still less a foreign-policy one,” the statement reads. Its authors bluntly oppose the attempts to shift this issue into the plane of international relations between Russia and Ukraine. The adoption of a new law on languages will create a legal framework for the ratification of the European Charter of regional languages and languages of the minorities, which will manifest Ukraine’s readiness to safeguard the human rights generally accepted across Europe.