The Verkhovna Rada removed Russian from the list of languages requiring special protection

The Verkhovna Rada has adopted in its entirety Bill No. 14120 on updating the official translation of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The main change is that Russian has been removed from the list of languages requiring protection.

This was reported by the press service of the parliament.

The decision was supported by 264 MPs. Only “Servant of the People” Yevhen Brahar was against.

What has changed?

The draft clarified the translation of the Charter.

Previously, the basic term regional or minority languages was translated as “regional or minority languages”, and the translation was not made from the original (English/French), but from the Russian version. This gave rise to a misinterpretation that the Charter concerns the protection of “national minorities”, and not languages whose speakers are a numerical minority.

The new translation — “regional or minority languages” — more accurately conveys the content of the document and eliminates the possibility of political manipulation around the status of the Ukrainian language.

The list of languages covered by the Charter in Ukraine has also been updated.

Russian has been excluded from the list, as it is not endangered, has historical dominance, and does not require special protection.

The "Moldovan" language was also removed, as Moldova officially recognized Romanian as the state language.

Now the state will apply the support regime to the following languages: Belarusian, Bulgarian, Gagauz, Crimean Tatar, Modern Greek, German, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Hungarian, Czech, and Hebrew.

Why is this important?

The Constitutional Court pointed out legal irregularities in the scope of the Charter back in 2021 and demanded that the state clearly define its official translation. The old version caused conflicts between legal norms and also allowed the Charter to be used for political pressure on the status of the Ukrainian language.

Now Ukraine will start applying the correct translation of the Charter, and the support regime will extend only to those languages that really need protection. The Russian language will not receive the status of "endangered", and accordingly, it will not have special preferences in the public sphere.

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