‘Budapest wants Kiev to return rights to the Hungarian community under the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law’ – Szijjártó says

Hungary wants Ukraine to restore the rights of their national minority, which were granted by the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law.

This was stated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary, Péter Szijjártó, at a joint press conference with the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak.

According to him, since 2015, laws have been passed in Ukraine that have restricted the rights of the Hungarian community.

“We ask for the return of all the rights to the Hungarian national community that it had before 2015. We ask for nothing more,” the minister said.

According to him, all of Budapest’s requests are outlined in 11 points, including the restoration of Hungarian schools, the possibility of taking exams in Hungarian, and the lifting of restrictions on language in higher education, culture, and public life.

Earlier, Péter Szijjártó said at a press conference in Uzhgorod that he has no intention of discussing with Ukraine directly the allocation of 50 billion euros by the European Union, which Budapest is blocking.

“As for unlocking 50 billion euros for Ukraine – this is not a bilateral issue. Therefore, we will discuss this not here, but in Brussels,” Szijjártó said.

His Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, said that Hungary and Ukraine will establish a joint commission, which will present a complete list of unresolved issues related to the Hungarian minority within 10 days.

Recall that in December, Hungary stated that Budapest is not satisfied with the law on national minorities adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The adopted changes do not restore all the rights to ethnic Hungarians that were taken from them since 2015.