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Diverting Linguistic Diversity: The Politics of Multilingualism in the European Parliament

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Multilingualism and Politics

Abstract

The European Union (EU) motto ‘united in diversity’ encompasses a rich variety of languages. Both the treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights commit the Union to respecting linguistic diversity. Yet, what such linguistic diversity concretely entails remains unclear. This chapter draws on original fieldwork (debates on resolutions, European Parliament activities and interactions with Members of the European Parliament), including over 150 interviews conducted as part of a larger project on the contestation of minority rights in the EU. It shows that everyone appears to be a champion of linguistic diversity inside the European Parliament. But whereas minority rights activists use this value to motivate Brussels to act where their national governments would not, their opponents instead interpret in a way that helps them maintain the domestic status quo.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A possible Brexit would not affect the number of official languages.

  2. 2.

    The analysis covers oral and written statements, including explanations of votes.

  3. 3.

    According to Nanz (2006, p. 4), a European public sphere consists of “a multiplicity of continuous and overlapping civic dialogues conducted across cultural and national boundaries that lead to the mutual formation and change of individual perspectives.”

  4. 4.

    Consider, for example: “There can be no European democracy because there is no European public sphere; there can be no European public sphere because there is no European people […]; and there can be no European people because there is no common European language” (Kraus 2000, pp. 14–15).

  5. 5.

    Recognition varies both across and within states. Within the United Kingdom, for instance, Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh receive more official support than Cornish, Channel Island French and Scots (Hornsby and Agarin 2012, p. 100). Basque is a regional language in France and Spain, but the rights of its speakers are different across the two countries (see Trenz 2007). See Liu (2017) for an account of how group size affects the recognition of minority languages.

  6. 6.

    The European Language Equality Network replaced EBLUL in 2011.

  7. 7.

    Interview, Davyth Hicks.

  8. 8.

    Interview, Davyth Hicks.

  9. 9.

    The European Commission’s (2005, p. 3) multilingualism policy aimed to promote “a climate that is conducive to the full expression of languages, in which the teaching and learning of a variety of languages can flourish.”

  10. 10.

    It only mentioned that “standards of teaching and development in respect of other languages not assessed by the indicator” should not be undermined (European Parliament 2006c).

  11. 11.

    Other examples, of course, exist (e.g. Blok 2008; Groß 2015; Welsh 2013).

  12. 12.

    “[It] stresses that the European Union has to be an area where respect for ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity prevails, and where people are neither excluded nor marginalized in any way; points out that the EU needs to adopt a systematic approach to the preservation and protection of minority languages and cultures” (European Parliament Intergroup for Traditional Minorities, National Communities and Languages 2014).

  13. 13.

    See Krausneker (2000).

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  1. Institute of Political Science, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands

    Martijn Mos

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  1. Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK

    Katerina Strani

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Mos, M. (2020). Diverting Linguistic Diversity: The Politics of Multilingualism in the European Parliament. In: Strani, K. (eds) Multilingualism and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40701-8_3

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