The State Language Protection Commissioner Taras Kremin met with the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Romania to Ukraine Christian-Leon Turcanu.

Taras Kremin informed Mr. Turcanu about the key areas of his activities, the work carried out by the Secretariat of the Commissioner for the implementation of the Law of Ukraine "On Ensuring the Functioning of Ukrainian as the State Language".

The State Language Protection Commissioner noted that the language law does not discriminate against the languages of national minorities and foreign languages on the territory of Ukraine. Its task is to eradicate the remains of the pan-imperial Russification approach to the functioning and development of the Ukrainian language which had existed before Ukraine gained independence. He also shared the results of the review of restrictions on the functioning of the state language in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine (actually – linguocide) prepared by the Secretariat of the Commissioner in cooperation with the Office of the President of Ukraine to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, human rights and non-governmental organisations.

The Ambassador Turcanu emphasized the importance of a balanced approach in the implementation of language and education legislation of Ukraine in terms of realization of rights of national minorities, in particular, of the Romanian community in areas of its compact settlement in Ukraine.

The parties also discussed the possibility of establishing cooperation between the Secretariat of the Commissioner and the Romanian Academy (Academia Română), in the context of studying and implementing language practices within the functioning of the European Federation of National Institutions for Language (EFNIL) which Ukraine aims to join as a member.