After two decades of a language war: what does Ukraine's minority education law mean for ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia?

On October 12, the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed law no. 16119, which guarantees the educational rights of national minorities and indigenous peoples. According to reports by UNIAN and Ukrinform, 266 lawmakers supported the bill, even though a majority of the constitutional 450 seats – that is, 226 votes – would have been enough for it to pass. Because of the war and the Russian occupation, only about four hundred lawmakers are currently exercising their mandate, so the bill actually received the support of two-thirds of the sitting body.

The parliament also decided that Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk must sign the law without delay and send it to President Volodymyr Zelensky for promulgation. The haste is understandable, since, according to the Kyiv Independent, this was precisely the step that Hungary had set as a condition for allowing Ukraine's EU accession talks to move forward. Budapest indicated last week that once the law was passed, it would not block the next stage of the negotiations, meaning the EU's foreign ministers could open two more negotiating chapters for Ukraine and Moldova — on the internal market and on competitiveness and inclusive growth — as early as October 13 in Luxembourg. The vote marks an important milestone in an almost decade-long, often toxic dispute centered on the fate of Hungarian-language schools in Transcarpathia, and underpinned by the fact that for a long time Budapest used the issue of minority protection more as a brake on Ukraine's Western integration than as a genuine advocate for the interests of Transcarpathian Hungarians.

The law applies to Ukraine's indigenous peoples — primarily the Crimean Tatars — as well as to national minorities whose language is an official language of the European Union, meaning that besides the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia, it also affects the Romanian, Polish, Slovak and Bulgarian communities. According to earlier figures from Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, nearly thirteen thousand students in Transcarpathia study in Hungarian, in close to one hundred educational institutions. Under the law, the language of instruction remains Ukrainian, but in schools where classes and groups are taught in a minority or indigenous language, the use of the mother tongue is guaranteed alongside the state language — not only during lessons, but also in communication among students, teachers and other participants in education, both inside the school building and in its courtyard. This matters because over the summer, the commissioner responsible for protecting the Ukrainian state language sent a letter urging Hungarian-language schools in Transcarpathia to curb the use of Hungarian during, for instance, sports activities.

The law also introduces a new legal status. Schools where more than half of the students study in a minority language that is also an official EU language can be granted the status of a national minority secondary education institution, while schools that already held such status can keep it even if the share of students studying in their mother tongue falls to as low as 20 percent; if it drops below that, the status can only be withdrawn with the agreement of the Ministry of Education. In practice, this means that Hungarian schools operating in dwindling, scattered communities cannot be stripped of their minority character overnight. The director or deputy director of a minority school must speak the minority community's language in addition to Ukrainian, and curricula may include the minority's history, culture, traditions, symbols and customs. If a municipal minority school is reorganized or closed down, its founder must, at the parents' request, ensure that the children can continue their studies in a similarly-status school with instruction in their mother tongue within the same administrative unit, and such reorganizations must be carried out in coordination with the ministry.

The law also addresses exams and documents. Students studying in their mother tongue may request that the tasks of external assessment — that is, Ukraine's centralized final exams and university entrance exams — be translated into their native language. This option does not apply to language and literature subjects, but it is also available to those who have already finished secondary school, and at parents' request, schools may issue official certificates and their annexes in the minority language alongside the original. One provision, however, also leaves the door open in the other direction: if the parents of at least two-thirds of the students in a minority class request it in writing, the school may expand the range of subjects taught in Ukrainian. This is not an obligation but an option, intended for families who want to make it easier for their children to pursue further studies or employment in Ukraine. The law consistently refers to "the language of a national minority of Ukraine that is an official language of the European Union," thereby deliberately excluding Russian, since Kyiv does not want the pretext of minority protection to once again open the door to the Russification that Moscow imposed on the country for centuries and which today remains one of the main tools of wartime propaganda.

To understand why this can be called a breakthrough, we need to go back to 2017. On September 5 of that year, the Ukrainian parliament passed a new education law, which then-President Petro Poroshenko signed a few weeks later. Under Article 7 of that law, minority languages could only be used in kindergarten and the first four grades of primary school — and even then alongside Ukrainian — while from the fifth grade onward, only the mother tongue and literature could be taught in the minority language. Mihály Tóth, a constitutional law expert from Transcarpathia, assessed at the time that in the future there could be no schools with minority languages of instruction, only classes and groups. The Hungarian government rejected the law sharply; then-Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó went so far as to say that the educational situation of minorities had become worse than it had been under the Soviet Union. This was when Budapest began blocking meetings of the NATO–Ukraine commission, and later also Ukraine's EU rapprochement.

The 2020 public education law set out a gradual transition. In minority schools teaching in EU languages, at least 20 percent of the curriculum in the fifth grade was to be taught in Ukrainian, rising to 40 percent by the ninth grade, while in secondary school at least 60 percent of subjects were to be taught in Ukrainian. Its implementation was postponed several times, and finally, in December 2023, citing recommendations from the Council of Europe's Venice Commission, the Rada passed a new minority law that made two seemingly significant concessions:

• it allowed private schools to teach in any official EU language,

• students who had begun their studies before September 2018 could finish school under the old rules.

The Orbán government considered this insufficient and drew up an eleven-point list of demands. According to a Telex analysis published in the spring, however, practice was far more lenient than the wording of the laws suggested: Hungarian-language schools taught only the Ukrainian language and literature, Ukrainian history and civics in Ukrainian, while the centralized final exam could also be taken in Hungarian. The fears were therefore not unfounded, since the legislation did indeed foreshadow a narrowing of Hungarian-language education, but reality turned out to be less dramatic than the way Budapest's government propaganda portrayed it for years.

The turning point came with Tisza's victory in the April elections. Within a few weeks, Péter Magyar's government reached an agreement with Kyiv, involving Hungarian and Ukrainian experts as well as Transcarpathian Hungarian organizations and churches, and on June 4 the Hungarian prime minister announced that Ukraine had committed to restoring the system of national minority schools. According to the commitments, Hungarian will be freely usable in every area of school life, students will be allowed to use national symbols, administrative matters can be conducted in Hungarian, certificates can also be issued in Hungarian, students will be able to take their final and entrance exams in Hungarian, and minority schools will be maintained even with lower student numbers. The agreement also extends to other areas of public life, for instance by allowing political campaigning in Hungarian. Ukraine researcher Csilla Fedinec wrote for 444 that the agreement actually built on the points put forward by Szijjártó, except that the new government also wanted to reach an actual agreement rather than simply block things; the full text of the agreement, however, has not been made public, so its details are known only from official statements and press reports. According to Fedir Shandor, Ukraine's ambassador to Hungary, the parties finalized the compromise amendments concerning minority education rights on September 22. Under the previously announced timetable, Ukraine committed to resolving education-related issues by the end of 2026, while further steps concerning language use, national symbols, and political rights and representation were scheduled for 2027.

Following the agreement, Budapest agreed to let the first chapter of Ukraine's accession talks — covering fundamental issues such as the judiciary, the rule of law, the fight against corruption and democratic institutions — open on June 15, followed in July by the sixth chapter, on external relations, which also allowed Moldova's accession talks to move forward, since the EU had politically linked the accession of the two countries. Budapest, however, kept the remaining chapters closed until Kyiv began fulfilling its commitments — specifically by passing the education law, which the Transcarpathian Hungarian advocacy organizations KMKSZ (Hungarian Cultural Association of Transcarpathia) and UMDSZ (Hungarian Democratic Federation of Ukraine) had also been urging. Before the Luxembourg meeting, Foreign Minister Anita Orbán said that the law was the result of the bilateral agreement reached in May and June, called it an important step in Ukraine's EU accession process, and thanked the Hungarian and Ukrainian experts and politicians involved. If the two additional chapters open on Monday, only two negotiating clusters will remain closed for Ukraine — covering agriculture and transport — and according to the Kyiv Independent, these are likely to amplify Poland's concerns more than Hungary's.

For Transcarpathia, the law primarily provides legal security, but the future of Hungarian-language education does not depend solely on legal provisions. At the 2001 census, around 156,000 Hungarians still lived in Transcarpathia; estimates suggest that today barely half that number remain. The war, men fleeing conscription, and economic emigration have pushed the community to the brink of survival — according to Eduline, a starting teacher's salary amounts to roughly 25,000 forints a month, making it nearly impossible to replace departing Hungarian teachers. The passage of the law also carries important lessons for both capitals: Budapest has learned that the cause of Hungarians beyond the border can be advanced through mutual interests and agreements, not by holding the future of a neighboring country at war hostage for years for Moscow's benefit. Kyiv, in turn, has learned that the Hungarian community is not an enemy or a fifth column of Russian influence, but part of Ukraine's loyal citizenry, many of whom are fighting in the Ukrainian army today. Minority protection, then, is not at odds with Ukraine's national interest — it is in fact part of the very European identity for which Ukrainians are fighting and sacrificing their lives today.

Ugar