The business community demands support for the Ukrainian dubbing industry

Learning English as an international communication language is undoubtedly a correct step, especially in the context of Ukraine's further integration into the European community and the prospect of NATO membership. Primarily, this should apply to government officials, employees in the cultural sphere, higher education, senior officers of the Armed Forces, and so on.

Therefore, the business community welcomes the government's initiatives to increase funding for English language courses for all willing Ukrainians. We are convinced that language proficiency stimulates business and investment cooperation and facilitates the entry of our exporters into new markets.

At the same time, Draft Law No. 9432 "On the Use of the English Language" contains provisions that can cause significant damage to the domestic Ukrainian dubbing industry.

The Ukrainian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs reports this.

The draft document stipulates that by 2025, 50% of films in cinemas should be in their original language (meaning English), and by 2027, this percentage should reach 100%. Ukrainian language would be presented in the form of subtitles.

There are several problems with this approach. First, conceptually, no country in the world has a direct ban on dubbing films in their native language. The draft law, on the other hand, essentially obliges not to provide such dubbing for films released in theaters. Second, there is an economic aspect: the number of cinema-goers will significantly decrease as watching a film and reading subtitles on the screen is not easy or practical. It should be understood that English-language films in theaters do not stimulate language learning, especially for those who do not want to learn the language at a sufficient level, for example.

Thus, there will be no direct positive effect, but the Ukrainian dubbing industry, which involves hundreds of actors, sound engineers, and others, may suffer. This entails job losses and affects an entire cultural sector, not to mention the losses for cinemas that are already going through challenging times.

The third aspect is national security. In Ukraine, after the start of full-scale aggression by the Russian Federation, citizens who previously used the Russian language in their daily lives and often at work began to switch to Ukrainian massively. This process needs to be encouraged and supported in every possible way. The film industry is a powerful tool, especially considering that the quality of Ukrainian dubbing is extremely high and popular in Ukraine and beyond. If there is no dubbing in the native language, many people will resort to the usual scenario of downloading films with Russian voiceovers from the internet. The funds earned from this Russian dubbing, by Russian actors and sound engineers, go towards financing the war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.

Therefore, the Ukrainian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, along with the Anti-Crisis Staff for Economic Stability in the Conditions of Martial Law, called for the removal of these provisions from the mentioned draft law, while keeping its essence intact in terms of stimulating the learning of the English language in Ukraine through increased availability of courses, improvement of language education in schools and universities, promotion of the use of bilingual official and business resources (Ukrainian and English versions of websites), and so on.