11 March 2014, 16:57
On Tuesday, Temporary Special Commission of the Verkhovna Rada on preparation of the draft law on the development and use of languages in Ukraine has held its second meeting under the chairmanship of the Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Ruslan Koshulynskyi.
The people’s deputies of Ukraine, deputies of local councils, scientists, public figures, international experts, in particular, advisors of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities participated in the work of the Commission.
Securing status of the Ukrainian language as the only state one, proceeding from article 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine; stopping inter-language conflicts, as well as several other issues were the key discussion topics during the Commission’s work. Participants of the meeting stressed that the language issue in Ukraine should be a unifying one on the way to development of the Ukrainian state, since the duty of both the Ukrainian Parliament and Ukraine, as a sovereign state, lies in preserving Ukrainian language for the country and the world.
Summing up, R.Koshulynskyi suggested include the Concept of state language policy of 15/02/2010, opinion of the Venice Commission and the OSCE High Commissioner into the source base.
The people’s deputies upheld the draft law of Ukraine “On the procedure of using languages in Ukraine”, elaborated under the chairmanship of Leonid Kravchuk, as the one that will be taken as a basis when elaborating a new version of the Law.
The draft document will be elaborated with consideration of deputies’
and experts’ proposals.
Together with experts, the Verkhovna Rada by “understanding the need both of present-day agreement and future development of Ukraine, the Ukrainian language as the state language, languages of national minorities as those requiring protection and original development,” could give an impulse to the process of reforming the language sphere, summed up the Deputy Chairman of the Parliament.
Next meeting of the Temporary Special Commission will be held on March 18, 2014.
Temporary Special Commission on elaboration of the draft Law of Ukraine on development and use of languages in Ukraine was formed by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on March 4, 2014. Chairman of the Commission is Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine R.Koshulynskyi. It includes representatives of all parliamentary factions and deputies’ groups.