[lg policy] Europe; EU's commitment to promoting multilingualism under fire

Harold Schiffman hfsclpp at gmail.com
Fri Mar 27 15:21:37 UTC 2015 

 EU's commitment to promoting multilingualism under fire
 Written by James O'Brien on 26 March 2015 in Special Report

As one MEP takes to holding a 'language strike', the EU's promise of
promoting language diversity has come under renewed scrutiny.
    [image: Interpreter in silhouette]

In the late 1950s there were four official EU languages, today there are 24
but figures provided by the European commission reveal that 40 million
people in the EU speak 60 indigenous regional or minority languages.

While language policy is a member state competence, the European commission
"helps fund projects and partnerships designed to raise awareness of
minority languages, promote their teaching and learning, and thereby help
them survive".

The commitment to language and cultural diversity is enshrined in the
European treaties and was further enhanced by the Lisbon treaty when
respect for linguistic minorities became legally binding.

"Multilingualism in the EU will not be fully completed until languages such
as Irish, Basque, Galician or Catalan can be used with normality in the
parliament" - Josep-Maria Terricabas, Greens/EFA MEP

The issue of the EU's treatment has come to the fore recently following
Irish GUE/NGL MEP Liadh Ní Riada's decision to begin a 'stailc teanga'
(language strike) for the duration of seachtain na Gaeilge (Irish language
week) to raise awareness of the status afforded to the Irish language
within the EU institutions.

Ireland's central statistics office reports that 36,000 people live in
designated Irish language regions and 485,000 use the language on a daily
basis, albeit largely within an educational context.

Irish became an official working language of the EU in 2007 but was
immediately granted renewable five-year derogations. This derogation
exempts EU institutions from providing full translation and interpretation
services, as is obligatory for all other working languages.

Ní Riada's attempts to speak Irish during a parliamentary committee were
immediately halted, something she said left her "quite bewildered" by as
she had brought an assistant to translate.

She felt this "undermined" her cultural right to communicate in her mother
tongue. The GUE/NGL MEP noted that, "Irish MEPs are entitled to only to
speak Irish in the parliament's plenary session, which is approximately one
to three minutes per month."

Ní Riada, who holds the position of Irish language officer in her national
Sinn Féin party, received support from across Europe for her attempts to
raise the issue.

Catalan MEP Josep-Maria Terricabas offered his full support to Ní Riada and
said his language confronts similar "discrimination", despite Catalan not
enjoying full 'official' status.

Estimates of the number of native Catalan speakers in Andorra, France,
Spain and Italy range from between four and five million people.

Terricabas told the Parliament Magazine, "Catalans have been striving for
the official recognition of our language in the European institutions for
years" and is clear that Spanish representatives are to blame for a lack of
progress in this regard.

The Greens/EFA MEP added that, "Multilingualism in the EU will not be fully
completed until languages such as Irish, Basque, Galician or Catalan can be
used with normality in the parliament."

Terricabas added that the fight for language recognition was part of the
reason "we are working to have our own independent state".

"It's incredible that the EU, the self-declared project on 'unity in
diversity', will not support the very reasonable call for ring-fenced
direct grants for endangered language development" - Davyth Hicks, ELEN

Jill Evans, a Welsh Greens/EFA MEP is keen to emphasise that, "Many
so-called 'minority' languages are actually more widely spoken than some
official EU languages."

Welsh is spoken by approximately 500,000 people or 19 per cent of the
population of Wales and Evans notes that this is higher than the numbers
that speak Irish or Maltese.

She highlights that, "Welsh is already a co-official EU language which
means it can be used in meetings of the council and other EU bodies but not
in the parliament. "This is a situation the parliament president Martin
Schulz pledged to examine during his re-election campaign last year.

Evans acknowledges that the fight for recognition has its detractors, who
"claim the cost is too high" but she has pledged to continue her fight and
will shortly publish a paper making the case to the British government for
Welsh recognition at European level. Ní Riada also disagrees with the cost
argument and says, "We cannot put a monetary value on something as basic as
our language."

Evans believes, "It is time that the thousands of young people in Wales who
are bilingual have both their languages recognised in Europe."

*Unity in diversity?*
Davyth Hicks, secretary general of the European language equality network
(ELEN), a non-governmental organisation working for the promotion,
protection and revitalisation of lesser-used languages and linguistic
rights, said the situation confronting Irish speakers was "absurd".

He called for "an equitable language policy throughout the EU institutions"
and asked, "What better way to communicate with EU citizens than in their
own languages?"

Hicks also queried the legality of the current approach to language
diversity being adopted: "How can the EU and the member states ratify the
Lisbon treaty and the charter of fundamental rights, which clearly states
that they must "respect" linguistic diversity and that discrimination is
prohibited, when we see co-official, regional, and even official languages
such as Irish, are being undermined?"

ELEN notes that in Europe, "we have many examples of best practice in
language revitalisation, for example in the Basque country", but Hicks
adds, "it's incredible that the EU, the self-declared project on 'unity in
diversity', will not support the very reasonable call for ring-fenced
direct grants for endangered language development projects despite 93 per
cent of MEPs calling for this in 2013".

ELEN is calling for "substantive measures" from the EU to support
linguistic diversity and notes that, "many of our languages are now defined
as endangered by United Nations educational, scientific and cultural
organisation (Unesco)".

Hicks believes, "we have the tools to stop language endangerment, we have
the means to revitalise endangered languages, but what we don't have is the
political will".

He adds that Europe could be a leader in "reversing language endangerment"
in what has become "a global crisis", but it must "act meaningfully to
safeguard its own linguistic diversity".

While the commission officially endorses a policy of language diversity,
critics have pointed out that multilingualism has gone from a dedicated
portfolio in the 2007 commission, to forming part of Androulla Vassiliou's
education, culture, multilingualism and youth portfolio in 2010, to being
relegated to a unit within the commission's DG for employment, social
affairs and inclusion in the Juncker commission.

This is something the network to promote linguistic diversity has said
"gives a utilitarian, market-oriented approach to the languages of Europe,
which will only prioritise big, hegemonic languages and will leave a
remarkable number of lesser-used languages".


  About the author

James O'Brien is a journalist and editorial assistant at the Parliament
Magazine
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