This house would establish English as an official language for all EU member states - Guest speaker

As this debate’s guest speaker, I am not here to take side or express a virulent opinion, but simply to clarify the facts and give new perspectives. In this state of mind you’ll notice that I will not use as much rhetoric as my fellow debaters, this isn’t because I’m not convinced about what I’m about to say but simply because I want to remain as unbiased and neutral as possible.

by EM

First of all, let me clarify some clash-points: MF has explained that costs surrounding the translation process in Parliament, the Commission and the Council are tremendous. Indeed, 30 % of all employees are translators (1750 over 6000), all of this has cost more than €510 million (511 to be exact) in 2005. But in reality, this amount only represents less than 1% of the budget of the EU. Is 1% too much to pay for all EU members to express themselves in their own language and benefit as much as possible from debates and speeches given in other languages ?

Moreover, the EU currently counts 23 official languages and adding a new country automatically implies adding this member’s language to official EU languages, this despite the fact that more than 70 % of the texts are written in English. This is why some deputies considered translating texts only on demand in order to avoid endless procedures that can slow down or even stall decisions that have to be made.

But that isn’t all, there is another point that needs to be taken into consideration: one of the fundamental rights of every European citizen is to be allowed to express himself in his mother tongue (it’s clearly stated in the Treaty of Lisbon, Article 20). He can address EU institutions and request to be answered in whatever language he chooses. I don’t think that anyone can simply take away a right people have enjoyed for so long. It is also clearly stated that no one should ever be discriminated against because of their origins : wouldn’t this be difficult to respect if the English were suddenly to be handed the power of the tongue ?

On the other hand, it is clear that a common language would make things a lot easier for quite a few people. Wouldn’t you agree that there is more in life than money? Well on this issue to: could changing things be beneficial for us, socially for example, not our bank accounts? For instance, while on a trip abroad you may not be able to communicate with the local population even though you might be passionate about their culture. And in spite of all your passion, the language barrier is going to prevent you from learning and exchanging with them. In my opinion, it’s from this kind of experience that the idea of a common language appeared. The power such a language would have is that it would help create powerful relationships between countries and cultures.  This would be especially beneficial in a current Europe where people might not feel as connected as they should to their 739 million neighbors.

Esperanto wanted to be the answer to that problem. It actually succeeded in various ways, but the course of history during the XX century put a halt to all its efforts. The two consecutive World Wars triggered patriotism in most European countries and sunk Esperanto into oblivion.  Indeed, in a zone where sharing the same currency causes so many problems surrounding a nation’s culture and tradition, it is hard to imagine that all EU member states will agree someday on a common language!

However, all hope is not lost: the more global a society becomes, the more people seem to be interested in this created-from-scratch language (nowadays, it is estimated that 100 000 speak fluent Esperanto and that 10 million more have studied it at some point in their life). Actually, ITK (a Hungarian school for languages) has so many requests from people all around Europe to learn this revolutionary language that it has become the third most taught language in this school!

The facts that I have tried to present to you in an unbiased manner (as if it were possible) should help you navigate around the rhetoric my fellow debaters are going to use to woo you to their side. So try and remember them ... and let the best side win!

EM