You may only speak in your official tongue in this parliament...

international | eu | other press Friday September 17, 2004 13:43 by iosaf

the end of linguistic diversity at the EU.

Curious procedural decision was made in the EU Parliament other day, as part of the ongoing "Catalan Language" question.

The Catalan deputies are now not allowed used their language in the chamber, and the majority will vote against the EU constitution as a result.

And understandably they're not happy about it.
So deputy Bernat Joan of the ERC (left republican catalan independence block) stood to speak to the other deputies in ...
german.

And the speaker of the parliament asked him to stop. He was not allowed continue.

There are more native speakers of German in the EU than there are of castillian spanish.
It is a langauge which is understood by more deputies in the chamber than for example -
italian, greek, danish, finnish.

Now this ought strike a chord with Irish people, as a long time ago, when Gaeilge was still an official debating language Mary Bonotti attempted to make her maiden speech to the parliament in Gaeilge, but was stopped by the then speaker of the parliament who was by the way an English conservative.
"I don't know what language you are speaking, but it is not one recognised here".
Bonotti finished her maiden speech in Italian, and everyone was very impressed not least her constituents.

But that trick can not be repeated today.

So now there is only one state with representatives in the EU parliament who are allowed speak more than one language -
The Belgians.

Who's representatives may legally address the parliament in either French (a snotty variety) or Flemish.

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the 14th of June 2004, Minister Brian Cowen (FF) stated it would not be worth the bother to address the co-officiality question of the Catalan Language in the European Union.

"sure we speak enough languages already".