You're reading: OSCE envoy: Ukrainians want decentralization, not federalization

Personal Envoy of the Swiss OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on Ukraine Tim Guldimann has said that the language problem is not a serious political factor in Ukraine and added that Ukrainians are in favor of decentralization of power, rather than the federalization of the country.

“Language is not a political issue. The use of Ukrainian or Russian
is not related to political positions,” he said at a briefing in Kyiv on
Wednesday.

Guldimann said that the cancellation by the Verkhovna Rada of the law
on languages had really caused a certain negative reaction in the
southeastern regions of Ukraine, but said that this decision had
subsequently not entered into force.

He noted that, for example, there were a lot of Ukrainian-speaking
citizens in Odesa region. He also said that when talking to people and
asking them questions on this issue, as a rule, he got the answers that
people, if necessary, switch from one language to another and choose
themselves which schools to send their children to.

Guldimann said that OSCE representatives saw during their visits to
Lviv, Odesa and Kherson that Ukrainian citizens want decentralization of
power, but do not talk about Ukraine’s federalization.

He said that the organization’s monitoring mission should deal
exclusively with monitoring and it has no tasks to solve existing
problems. He also said the OSCE mission performed a certain stabilizing
function and helped prevent the escalation of conflict processes that
have recently occurred in Ukraine and Crimea.