Ukraine became a member of the Council of Europe back in 1995 when the EU was much smaller and united Western European states. Therefore, the Council of Europe in Strasbourg was perhaps the only direction for Ukraine's Eurointegration.

This organisation became a kind of "watchdog for democracy" in early 2000s that criticised Kyiv for not adhering to democratic standards. The Venice Commission, an expert body that assisted Ukraine in advancing reforms, enjoyed particular respect in Ukraine.

However, trust in the Commission has wavered over the past year due to its doubtful actions. Following the decisions last weekend, trust is about to collapse. The reason is the biased and manipulative analysis of the law on national minorities in Ukraine.

At its June session, the European Commission for Democracy through Law, better known as the Venice Commission, adopted three conclusions on Ukraine: deoligarchisation, reform of the Constitutional Court, and the law "On National Minorities (Communities) of Ukraine."

But the Venice Commission has failed to understand the events in Ukraine. Russian aggression with signs of genocide there was referred to as a temporary "emergency situation," and they stated that after the war, Russian linguistic and cultural influence in Ukraine should be fully restored.

Ukraine will definitely refuse to comply with such absurd recommendations.

Although it can be predicted with certainty that for Russia's friends, this Venice Commission decision will become a tool precisely to halt Ukraine's progress towards EU membership.

Why is the law on minorities of such high importance?

It is of the seven criteria granted by the EU with Ukraine's candidate status and the EU is keen to assess their implementation based on the conclusions of the Venice Commission.

The criterion on minorities, added at Hungary's request, was expected to be one of the most problematic, but Ukraine expected that the Venice Commission would help to convince Hungary that the framework law is a good basis for reform in this field. What happened is quite the contrary. The conclusion Venice Commission oppinion has shocked the Ukrainian side.

Genocidal war is not a reason to fight against the influence of occupiers

The Venice Commission usually tries to make its conclusions in a balanced manner, underlining both the advantages and disadvantages of the analysed laws.

But there are exceptions – laws that the Venice Commission harshly criticises. Ukraine has encountered such cases before, and in all instances such kind of criticism corresponded to the positions of Ukrainian experts and analytical centers.

In this sense, the conclusion on the law on national minorities is unique. Because the Ukrainian expert community, unlike the Venice Commission, evaluates this framework law positively.

The most significant discrepancy is ideological. The collegial expert body of the Council of Europe, in its conclusion, attempts to convince Ukrainians that the Russian minority also requires equal or even greater protection than, for example, the Polish or Hungarian minority. After all, as the Venice Commission reminds us at the beginning of its conclusion, the Ukrainian Constitution of 1996 mentions the protection of the Russian language.

The lack of understanding of the war against Russian aggression's significance for Ukrainians is shocking.

Here is a very vivid example.

Article 5 of the adopted "minority" law contains the following provision: "The popularisation or propaganda of the terrorist state (aggressor state) and its authorities, the Russian Nazi totalitarian regime, symbols of military invasion, representatives of authorities and their actions that create a positive image of the aggressor state, justify or recognise the armed aggression of the Russian Federation as a terrorist state against Ukraine, the occupation of Ukrainian territory is prohibited."

This limitation is natural and even necessary for Ukraine, which did not raise any objections when opted in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament).

However, the Venice Commission insists that it should be excluded from the law because there should be no room for such "temporary" events as the war in minority legislation. The repeated explanations from official Kyiv and non-governmental actors that Russia started this war nine years ago under the false pretext of "protecting its minority" have not been sufficient.

Therefore, the Venice Commission included the following in its conclusion:

"[This article] focuses on a specific situation and should normally not appear in a general law on minorities, but rather in criminal legislation. The Venice Commission recommends considering that this provision be removed to another, more appropriate piece of legislation, possibly to specific legislation applying to the present emergency situation"

So, it's not actually a war, but just a "present emergency situation"!

The Venice Commission considers the war as a temporary matter, the impact of which will end when the Russian aggression is over.

But it's not the case for Ukrainians! Russia openly aims to destroy Ukrainian identity, and it should play a decisive role in minority legislation for us.

Interestingly, the Commission acknowledges that it is aware of Russian attempts to eradicate the Ukrainian language and culture, which have lasted for centuries, but it does not consider it as an argument. "Historical oppression of Ukrainian could lead to the adoption of positive measures aimed at promoting Ukrainian but did not justify depriving other minority languages – including Russian," reads the decision of the Venice Commission.

An important detail: in 2020, in its conclusions for another neighbouring state of Russia, Latvia, the Venice Commission agreed to the admissibility of similar restrictions on the Russian language (and, accordingly, the Russian-speaking minority) as a non-official language of the EU.

However, it excluded this possibility for Ukraine in 2023.

Why is that?

The Venice Commission believes that current EU member states have more tools to restrict the Russian minority than Ukraine does. "Even if in the meantime Ukraine has obtained EU candidate status, these arguments remain valid," says the decision of the Venice Commission. However, it grants Ukraine the "right" to impose temporary restrictions on the minority of the aggressor state... only until the end of the war. "Due to the brutal aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, it would be justified to provide for a transitional period during martial law where this privileged status would not be given to the Russian language," the document states. Immediately after the end of the war (which the Venice Commission considers only a temporary "emergency situation"), Russian should regain its "privileged status" in Ukraine, according to the Council of Europe body.

If you, reading this, can't believe your eyes – don't be surprised.

The author of these lines had exactly the same emotions. But all this is indeed in the conclusion.

And, unfortunately, this is far from the only reason to question the impartiality and professionalism of the Venice Commission's conclusion.

The conclusion against a European future

How to preserve Ukraine's European future is hard to say given the tone of the decision.

Did the composition of the rapporteur group, where only one expert comes from Eastern Europe, namely Czechia, play a decisive role? The three other members of the Venice Commission preparing the conclusion are representatives of Switzerland (a country with three official languages that even prohibits the re-export of its weapons to the Armed Forces of Ukraine), Belgium (a state that was not created on a national principle and has two official languages), and Mexico (the most enigmatic appointment; they probably best understand the context of the Russian genocidal war).

But the decision of the Venice Commission eventually was approved by the entire composition of the Commission, which includes scientists and renowned experts from all corners of Europe. It seems to be a problem that EuroPravda has already pointed out: that many in European expert and scientific circles still live by Russian myths and narratives about Ukraine.

But let's return to the conclusion of the Venice Commission.

Some "issues" with the Ukrainian law are highly debatable.

For example, one of the key claims of the Venice Commission is that this law delegates to the government the development of rules for communication between state bodies and citizens in minority languages. The Venice Commission insists that these rules should be developed by the parliament and prescribed in the law. Although this destroys the idea of a framework law and creates an inflexible system that will not be able to respond to changing needs. Interestingly, here the conclusion also contradicts itself because in another paragraph it falsely asserts that the Ukrainian law prohibits civil servants from communicating with citizens in their language. This is not true.

However, the majority of the Venice Commission's remarks relate to provisions that are absent from the analysed law - they were added by the Venice Commission based on other related laws in this field, such as the Law on Education and the Law on Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language. The Commission does not usually do this, but here it decided to change its approach.

This is particularly surprising considering that the Commission knew very well that the conclusion on the "minority" law is one of the decisive factors for the opening of negotiations on Ukraine's EU accession. But they decided to artificially increase some problems for Ukraine on this path despite all of it.

Some of these requirements are more than absurd. For example, the Venice Commission insists (paragraph 54) that signs, road signs, announcements, etc., in places where representatives of a minority constitute an absolute majority, may not be duplicated in the state language at all, only in the language of the minority. Absolute nonsense! The Ukrainian state, which has experienced Russian aggression under the guise of "protecting minorities," will not allow such "ghettos" where Ukrainian speakers would feel as if they were abroad. But now this has turned into a "demand" because without fulfilling this absurd point, Ukraine will face criticism for not meeting the criteria for starting EU accession negotiations.

This decision of the Venice Commission is disgraceful to the extreme. It blatantly ignores the context of the Russian war and openly denies the obvious fact that Russian aggression, which aimed to eradicate Ukrainian identity as such, will have consequences even after the end of hostilities.

Although the decision contains a number of correct and necessary recommendations (such as the need to allow/facilitate pre-election campaigning in minority languages), Kyiv will perceive it through the prism of those elements that essentially demand that Ukraine compromise its statehood.

Furthermore, this decision undermines the authority of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe. It is now difficult to take its recommendations seriously. The Council of Europe needs to acknowledge and rectify this glaring mistake. And the European Union should take into account that Ukraine, engaged in a war, cannot fulfill such recommendations, which does not make it any less European.

Written by Sergiy Sydorenko,  

"European Pravda," Editor