Sir,
I agree with Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha that the EU must be multi-lingual if it is going to get closer to its citizens. But I think he left many important questions unanswered. For example, should education policy set a target for the number of languages that our citizens ought to master? Which documents and sessions of EU institutions should be translated into what languages? You could argue that the current 23 official languages are not enough. Perhaps the mother tongues of our large Arabic, Turkish and Russian-speaking minorities need to be included as well. What about Basque and Welsh Europeans that do not identify with their official national language? If we are going to create an effective language policy, one which can stop English from becoming the dominant pan-European language by default, such topics need to be tackled now.
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha should remember, too, that a multi-lingual Europe by itself cannot guarantee that Europeans will take on a European identity. This will only happen when citizens believe that the EU is working for them. Therefore we need to communicate what the EU has done for its citizens, and what is still being done for them.
What's more, the average citizen won’t feel they have a say in "shaping this common future" – as Saxe-Coburg-Gotha puts it – just because they get free access to information about the Union in their mother tongue. In order to strengthen a sense of common European identity, the substance of EU communications must be relevant to Europeans as well as the language used.
So what messages should the Union put across? For a start, we could point out that EU policies now touch the everyday lives of almost 500m people. From consumer protection, air-passenger rights and the cost of mobile phone roaming tariffs, all the way to environmental policies to mitigate the threat of climate change, EU decisions affect the daily life of us all. European voters also need to hear about the new instrument that was introduced by the Reform Treaty, the European Citizen’s Initiative, which allows new issues to be brought to Brussels if one million citizens back the idea. Other good news worth spreading includes the strengthening of the European Parliament under the Reform Treaty, which guarantees democratic representation in Europe. Both the multi-lingual institutions of the EU and national-language media and politicians must play their part getting these messages across.
Finally, I would like to point out how the European Parliament is dealing with another subject of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha’s article: new social conflict in Europe. Recent riots in the suburbs of France and protests against Mohammed cartoons published in Denmark have made it clear that Europe needs a new social dialogue if it is to avoid "a painful clash of cultures". In 2006, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on conflicts in a multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-ethnic Europe; this was originally tabled by my Greens/EFA Group. The resolution said that free speech, while of primary importance, must not be abused. Those exercising their right to free speech must respect the fundamental values of democracy, pluralism and tolerance, and must never incite hate nor offend religious minorities. If offence is caused, the Parliament believes that the victims must be given legal means of redress at the national and European levels.