The government proposes to remove Russian and Belarusian from the list of languages that require protection.

The Cabinet of Ministers has made a decision to amend the list of languages eligible for state protection.

This was reported by the government's permanent representative in the Verkhovna Rada, Taras Melnychuk.

The government supported a draft law titled “On Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine in Connection with the Update of the Official Translation of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.” The document proposes changes that align the title and provisions of the Law of Ukraine “On Ratification of the European Charter for Regional Languages or Minority Languages” with the updated translation of the charter, as well as the laws of Ukraine “On National Minorities (Communities) of Ukraine” and “On Media.”

The main proposal of the draft law is to update the list of languages subject to support and protection as defined by the charter. The new list includes the following languages: Bulgarian, Gagauz, Crimean Tatar, Modern Greek, German, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Hungarian, Czech, and Hebrew.

Thus, in the new list proposed by the Cabinet, Russian and Belarusian languages are no longer included. Furthermore, the “Moldovan language” has also been removed from the list because the Parliament of Moldova renamed it to “Romanian” in March 2023.

Ukraine ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages back in 2003. Its provisions covered Belarusian, Bulgarian, Gagauz, Greek, Jewish, Crimean Tatar, Moldovan, German, Polish, Russian, Romanian, Slovak, and Hungarian languages.

It should be noted that in November of last year, the Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, Olga Stefanishyna, stated that the issue of protecting the “Russian minority” is not on the agenda of negotiations with the EU regarding the rights of minorities, as there is no such community officially recognized in Ukraine.