Poland refuses to sign joint letter to Ukraine on Law on Education
Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski has denied a request from Hungarian counterpart Péter Szijjártó to sign a joint letter to the authorities of Ukraine regarding the law "On Education" as stated by Waszczykowski in an interview with the Hungarian publication Heti Valasz, reports Rzeczpospolita.
Waszczykowski drew attention to the new Ukrainian law On Education, in connection with which Hungary announced an initiative to revise the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement.
"I will not condemn it, because this is bilateral business between Hungary and Ukraine. However, I will not politicize this problem, given Ukraine’s difficulties due to Russian aggression. I am convinced that this situation can be solved in a peaceful, less emotional way," he said.
Waszczykowski added that Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó stated this when he proposed to write a joint letter to the Ukrainian authorities.
The Foreign Minister noted that the law is aimed at regulating the situation in Russian schools; the Polish minority has only a few bilingual schools in Ukraine, so Warsaw does not consider this a big problem and does not intend to join the emotional statements by Szijjártó.
"But I understand the situation of the Hungarians…they live in a large enclave, and there are many schools where Hungarian is the main language; but to be honest, it sounds unnatural to me, because people living there need to understand both languages,” said the Minister.
It was earlier reported that Ukraine had agreed to joint work with Hungary regarding the mechanism for implementing the law "On Education".