The Hungarian minority in Ukraine – Orban’s political pawn?

Hungary has so far taken a stand when it comes to Ukraine’s accession to the EU, justifying this, among other things, with alleged discrimination against the Hungarian minority in the neighboring country. How does she feel about that?

Tibor Tompa is at home in two cultures. The entrepreneur grew up in Kiev, but comes from the Zakarpattia region in southwest Ukraine on the border with Hungary. As he says, he has “Hungarian blood” and a “Ukrainian heart.”

As a representative of the Hungarian minority in the country, Tompa makes one thing clear: he speaks to his son or his parents in Hungarian whenever he wants. There can therefore be no question of Hungarian Ukrainians being discriminated against when practicing their language and culture.

Education law of 2017 causes criticism

This is exactly what the government in Budapest is accusing Ukraine of. Around 100,000 ethnic Hungarians live in the country, mostly in Zakarpattia. Prime Minister Viktor Orban had long criticized a Ukrainian education law from 2017.

It stipulated that lessons up to the fourth grade could take place entirely in a minority language such as Hungarian – but after that mainly in Ukrainian. Until now, students in Zakarpattia have been able to complete their entire school career in Hungarian.

Orban threatens to block

Orban has linked the issue to Kiev’s European ambitions and is threatening to block Ukraine’s desire to start EU accession negotiations.

If Kiev wants this, Orban said in a radio interview months ago, it must meet the EU’s expectations, “including Hungary’s expectations regarding our minority in Transcarpathia.”

Kyiv ready to make concessions

Specifically, Budapest does not want to significantly reduce teaching in Hungarian. But Brussels is also demanding further steps from Kiev to protect national minorities, for example with a view to holding public events and the work of media in minority languages.

To take this into account, Ukraine recently passed an amendment to the law. It also provides for less strict quotas for teaching in Ukrainian than the 2017 education law – a concession to Budapest. It remains to be seen whether this will be enough to prevent Orban’s impending veto.

“Veritable language ghetto”

Tibor Tompa, the Hungarian-Ukrainian entrepreneur from Kiev, sharply criticizes Orban – both his proximity to Russia and his policy towards the Hungarian minority in Ukraine.

So far, Hungarian-Ukrainian families have received money from Budapest if they sent their children to purely Hungarian schools – which in turn solidified the separate school system in Zakarpattia.

“Viktor Orban and Fidesz have created a veritable language ghetto in the Ukrainian-Hungarian border area,” says Tompa, describing the language use of the Hungarian minority drastically.

Their biggest challenge is often a lack of integration into Ukrainian society. “If they only speak Hungarian, they will become cheap labor for Hungary.”

Mutual Blaming

This is primarily why Tompa believes it is necessary to expand Ukrainian lessons in his home region. But even he believes that most ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine feel more connected to Budapest.

Representing this group, the Ukrainian-Hungarian politician Vasyl Brenzovych rejected the accusation of a lack of will to integrate years ago:

“It is assumed that the Hungarians of Transcarpathia do not know Ukrainian and do not even want to learn it. But the fact is that there are no reasonable conditions for learning this language.”

A criticism that Tompa also shares. In his view, after independence in 1991, Ukraine failed to specifically promote the Ukrainian language skills of its ethnic minorities at an early stage.

With regard to the dispute with Budapest, he is conflicted – he hopes that Orban will say yes to EU accession negotiations with Ukraine. But he fears that parts of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine will remain effectively separated from the majority society.