A DISPROPORTIONATE rise in the use of English is threatening the use of other European languages in the European Union, according to a Polish MEP.
Lukasz Kohut made the claim in an amendment to a draft opinion for the European Parliament’s committee on culture and education, which stressed the importance of “preserving and promoting multilingualism” in all the EU’s institutions and other bodies, along with the need to treat all official languages equally.
It also acknowledged the “invaluable contribution” of the translation centre’s services to their “smooth functioning … and to making their work transparent and accessible to Union citizens in their respective mother tongues”.
A first amendment to the opinion, from Morten Lokkegaard, a Danish MEP, added a rider recommending that “the services of external providers to be used to a larger extent”.
German MEP Christine Anderson tabled a second amendment, which called for documents to be translated in all the EU’s official languages:
The amendement read: “Calls for texts to be translated not only into selected official languages, but into all official languages of the Union, in order to achieve the objective of equal treatment and not to put minority languages at a disadvantage.”
A member of the parliament’s Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, Kohut is also something of a champion of the Silesian language. However, his amendment suggested he is no great fan of English.
It read: “Regrets the disproportionate increase in the use of English, which jeopardises the use of all other European languages.”
The National told last week how English would cease to be the official language of the EU – which we described as another consequence of Britain’s exit from the bloc.
European and Scottish affairs correspondent, Udo Seiwert-Fauti, told us then: “English will be only a working language in talking to each other within the EU but it will end as the official EU language.”
His remark was disputed on our website by Nicholas Whyte, who said it was “completely untrue”, and added: “Regulation No 1 lists the EU’s official languages; it has not been changed and nobody is talking about changing it.”
However, Seiwert-Fauti stood his ground, telling The National: “The thing is it’s been debated many times … let’s wait for next EU Parliament session in January. We will see then.
“If the rules and regulations are still working, this [English] has to go.”
Seiwart-Fauti continued: “At the moment many in Brussels and Strasbourg have other problems to solve.
“I was there when this problem came up.
“It’s up to the EU Parliament to decide, which will have many implications on internal translation services.”
The UK is still, however, a full member of the Council of Europe (CoE) in Strasbourg, where English and French are the official languages, and is due to pay around €20 million (£18.1m) into its budget this month.
Seiwert-Fauti said the UK flag was still flying in Strasbourg and the UK had also agreed to follow decisions from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the European Court of Justice.
In the coming weeks, only subscribers will be able to comment on The National articles. Subscribe now or log in to make sure you stay a part of the conversation.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions. What should we do with our second vote in 2021? What happens if Westminster says no to indyref2?
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversation, register under fake names, and post vile abuse. We’ve had hundreds of emails from you complaining about this, asking us to take steps to ensure that these people aren’t given a platform on our site.
We’re listening to you, and here’s how we plan to make that happen.
We have decided to make the ability to comment only available to our 10,000 paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them.
We’ll be monitoring this change over the first few weeks, and we’re keen to know your thoughts. Email us at letters@thenational.scot if you want to have your say.
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Last Updated:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment?
Report This Comment