Bulgaria and Ukraine will work together to guarantee and expand the opportunities for the Bulgarian minority in the country to study its native tongue. This was confirmed at a meeting today between President Rumen Radev and Lilya Hrynevych, the Ukrainian Minister of Education and Science. Fulfilling the commitment assumed by the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko during his meeting with the Bulgarian Head of State in the UN in September 2017, Minister Lilya Hrynevych is visiting Bulgaria to discuss with the Bulgarian institutions Ukraine’s curricula and syllabi for the Bulgarian minority in the country to study its native language.  

“Our compatriots’ full integration in the Ukrainian society requires ensuring education not only in Ukrainian, but also in its native language, sufficient in amount and quality, in secondary school. We are grateful for Ukraine’s responsible attitude to this important for Bulgaria issue and we are ready to hold a constructive dialogue,” Rumen Radev said. Minister Hrynevych briefed the Bulgarian President on the actions taken by Ukraine to ensure the training of a sufficient number of teachers in Bulgarian language in Ukraine.

The preservation of the administrative integrity of the historical Bolgrad region, where a lot of Bulgarians live in Ukraine, was also confirmed at the meeting. Minister Hrynevych also said that the Ukrainian government has made a decision to lessen the strengthened control over the activity of Bulgarian companies in the country due to the different tax rates in Bulgaria and Ukraine, on which President Petro Poroshenko also assumed a commitment during the talks he held with President Rumen Radev within the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly.

President Radev confirmed our country’s support for deepening the cooperation between Ukraine and the EU and also Bulgaria’s willingness to soon convene a meeting of the bilateral committee for economic cooperation, which should outline concrete projects of mutual interest.