Volodymyr Lytvyn: There shall be a
single State Language in Ukraine
The Irish Times - Thursday, March 25, 2010
Ukraine vows not to repeat Ireland´s language ‘mistake´
"Ireland made a "mistake" in recognising English as the second official language and this would not be repeated in Ukraine", said Volodymyr Lytvyn, Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament, in the interview to "The Irish Times", a leading Irish newspaper, yesterday at the end of a two-day official visit to Ireland.
"We must not repeat the Irish mistake. Nowadays, the English language is dominant in Ireland. So if the Russian language would be recognised as a second state language in Ukraine, in such circumstances the Ukrainian language will be moved to the periphery", V.Lytvyn said.
He is convinced that Ukraine should have only one state language. At the same time, the Head of the Ukrainian Parliament stressed that the rights of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine should not be violated. "The majority would consider Ukrainian as the mother-tongue but a great amount of the population speak Russian. The Russian language dominates on the TV programmes and in the mass media in general. A certain psychological barrier exists when the Russian language is considered to be the most prestigious one", V.Lytvyn explained.
When the journalist pointed out to him that native Irish-speakers were a small minority in Ireland and therefore recognition had to be given to English, he replied: "There were not many French-language speakers in France in the 19th century but they were forced to speak French at that time."
Despite reported tensions in the ruling coalition, V. Lytvyn insists Ukraine is politically stable.
Asked if he hoped to see Ukraine joining the European Union at some stage, he replied: "For this, we need about 10 years and the approval of the EU." He stated that accession of Ukraine to the EU would change the alignment of forces in Ukraine due to the human and economic potential of Ukraine. "It would be a complicated process. We understand that Europe can not be united and integral without Ukraine", V.Lytvyn said. "It is necessary to harmonize our life standards with the European ones", the Head of the Ukrainian Parliament believes. "We shall work hard for it".
Asked about the relations between Ukraine and Russia, the Chairman of The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine stated that Ukraine and Russia went through a period of high tension some years back but relations are better now: "They are normalising. The dialogue is renewed on the highest level." Ukraine halted the transit of natural gas supplies from Russia through pipelines across its territory to the rest of Europe a number of times in recent years. V.Lytvyn was asked if supplies could be blocked again. "I have an optimistic attitude to the solving of this problem and I think all parties to this conflict, including Russia, Ukraine and Europe drew their own lessons from this blockage," he said.
V.Lytvyn said Ukraine has "resumed negotiations with the IMF". He added: "We understand that we must implement rather unpopular steps and not because the IMF demands it but because the situation requires such steps." Asked if Ukraine would be joining Nato in the near future, Mr Lytvyn said: "It´s not a question on today´s agenda."
The interview is available online at irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0325/1224267013992.html