Yanukovych not giving up on official status of Russian in Ukraine
17/03/201018:35
KIEV, March 17 (RIA Novosti) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has not abandoned his intention to grant Russian the official status of a second national language in Ukraine, the deputy chief of the presidential administration said on Wednesday.
"We can't speak about a second national language at the moment, because it requires a change to the constitution. We have never been people who throw words into the wind. Right now, we don't have the demanded constitutional majority, so there is no way we can do this," Anna German said.
"However, the charter for regional languages will be enacted in Ukraine. If the Russian-speaking people have complaints, we will do everything we can to forge a constitutional majority and amend the constitution," she added.
Ukrainian is enshrined in the country's constitution as the sole national language, and 300 votes are required in the 450-seat parliament to change the constitution. With the country split almost 50-50 between the Russian-speaking east and more nationalist west, there is little immediate chance of any group reaching that level of support.
Yanukovych has said, however, he will seek the ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which would allow individual regions to decide on whether to use Russian for official business and in schools.
The status of the Russian language is a hugely controversial issue in Ukraine, where some political groups oppose the "Russification" of the country. Many people in the former Soviet republic have never learned to speak Ukrainian, and Russian is widely spoken, especially in the east, Crimea and the capital.
