In reply to Kolesnichenko’s statement

Vadym Kolesnichenko already wants to write down Russian language as the second official one into Ukrainian Constitution. The clashes over the language project by Kivalov and Kolesnichenko have barely abated, and even more, the first session of the Constitutional Assembly, where its main priorities were declared (consolidation of the constitutional protection of human rights and freedoms, expanding of constitutional regulation of direct democracy institutions, increasing the effectiveness of the mechanism of the state power organization and balance) was just over, but the famous “Ukrainophile” already started pushing the idea of bilingualism legalization. He stated this in the Verkhovna Rada lobby on June 21, says Ukrainska Pravda. Kolesnichenko’s argument was that it would confirm that the population of Ukraine is bilingual. “The Party of Regions is convinced it should be done and insists on legalizing the existing bilingualism in Ukraine. We are going to appeal to the Constitutional Assembly for the new edition of the Constitution to include the paragraph that there are two official languages in Ukraine now – Ukrainian and Russian,” Kolesnichenko said. We asked head of the Constitutional Assembly, the first president of Ukraine Leonid KRAVCHUK to comment upon the situation:

“The Party of Regions can insist on whatever they want. And if one MP speaks about this, it does not yet mean that the whole party supports him. This is the first point. The second one is that the Constitutional Assembly does not amend the Constitution directly. It prepares a list of amendments and submits them to the president. And the new Constitution is approved by the Verkhovna Rada. And if ‘the Regionals’ are so sure they have 300 votes in the parliament, then they can talk about it with confidence. But if they are not so sure, which seems to be more likely, because nobody can be certain about this, then it is mere bluff. If you get to the core of the matter, it is even indecent to put the question like this. They start counting the chickens that are not yet hatched. And concerning my opinion about the second official language, I will never vote for bilingualism.

“I will hold my ground and say that the Article 10 of our Constitution fully corresponds to the current political situation, normal relations in Ukraine, and shapes the politics on the level of a multi-national state. It declares that Ukrainian language is official, and the state provides the ways of development for the languages of ethnic minorities. This is stated in the Constitution, this is our language policy. That is why when ‘the Regionals’ or some MPs talk about official bilingualism, so far they belong to the category of people who do not know what is going to happen tomorrow.”