Linguistic Complaints

 BY CC umjanedoan.

As a lazy English-speaker, I can't complain when it comes to the EU and language: there's no doubt about it, I'm in the privillaged group when it comes to communication. So there's very little I can add to Martin Holterman's rebuttal of Quatremer's complaints on the decline of French in the EU, except to highlight that in European law, French is still the top dog.

A good example is the European Court of Justice,* where French is the first language. So much so, that the application forms for interns is only in French. Perhaps someone can correct me, but I'm not aware of an EU institution that only has an application form in English.

The truth is that French is a privileged language in the EU - sure, not as big as English, but it's streets ahead of the most widely-spoken native language in the EU (German), and light years ahead of any other language. So there isn't really any call for alarmism over the Commission's economic assessments being made in English. After all, wasn't the Lisbon Treaty first drafted in French...?**



*Ok, the Court of Justice of the European Union if you want to be technical.

** Leading to Grahnlaw comparing the French and English versions of the provisions on citizenship.

Opening Up My Euroblogging: Language and Linking

I've been inspired by Mathew Lowry and Ralf Grahn to open up my Euroblogging and to try and reach out a bit more across the blogosphere(s).

The debate on the French Euroblogosphere (see Europasionaria) prompted Grahnlaw to introduce a policy on languages and comments on his blog - Ralf wants to promote greater connections by having a greater number of "commenting" languages available. Cracking open the linguistic barriers is one of the greatest obstacles to growing and connecting the Euroblogosphere and it's a great initiative to have to start welcoming more comments and debate in different languages. So I'm going to do the same for my blog. My linguistic ability only really extends to German (with a smattering of very, very basic French), so I will also rely on machine translation to help with responding.

Another side to this is commenting on other Euroblogs in different languages. Machine translation will be my (contrary) companion here, as the German Euroblogosphere seems to be very small. I'm not sure how bloggers will react to having strangely worded comments marring their blogs, but I'll try and bluster my way through. I have been following some non-English Euroblogs, though the number is quite small - hopefully by diving deeper across linguistic barriers will unearth some blogging treasures.

Finally, I need to start reaching out across national barriers (the second great divide that afflicts the Euroblogosphere). Earlier this week I wrote a mini-series on the Northern Irish MEPs, and I tried to make it neutral (given the divide in NI) and I tried to provide a context for those who aren't as familiar with the European Parliament. As far as I can tell, no Northern Ireland-based blogger picked up on what I wrote. Now this is fair enough - my writing style is a bit drawn-out and slightly academic (tips on how to blog better are welcome in the comments, by the way) - but there is no real debate on the NI MEPs in the NI blogosphere between elections, as far as I can tell.

This post is mainly about me trying to push myself to blog better and to cross barriers that I haven't found the time to in the past (I find blogging time-consuming, and comments take up time = particularly if you want to comment on several blogs). I haven't commented on NI, Irish and UK blogs that much, so I haven't been developing those relations between the blogospheres. It can be hard to know when to "speak", in that Europolitics rarely crops up in the NI blogosphere (though I've undoubtedly missed opportunities). So the lesson for me is: make more comments.

Mathew Lowry's post on making bridges and specialist bloggers in the Euroblogosphere makes me think there are 3 things the Euroblogosphere needs to do:

1. Grow! Bloggingportal.eu is up to 630 Euroblogs, so the Euroblogosphere is already growing quickly. New Eurobloggers are needed to replace those, like Julian Frisch, who have dropped out. A bigger Euroblogosphere will be better placed to make the connections between languages and national Blogospheres and support and encourage the growth of specialist Eurobloggers.

2. Reach out between linguistic barriers by commenting. This will help broaden debate and increase the impact of everyone's posts - after all, on European topics, if they're interesting, they deserve to be discussed across the Euroblogosphere.

3. Reach out across national Blogosphere lines (in my case, NI, Ireland and the UK). This will widen the debates and increase the influence of Euroblogging (and hopefully spur a greater interest in European politics (both in itself and in holding MEPs, etc. to account).

It may be a bad time for me to commit to this (I'll be a bit quite over the next few weeks), but I'll try to work at it and make it part of my routine.

And apologies to everyone who doesn't blog (but you should try(!)) and is a bit tired of the self-referential Euroblogging of the past few weeks!

A Week as a Romanian S&D MEP

From 10th-17th April I was a Romanian MEP for the S&D group in the Model European Union 2010 event in Strasbourg, and it was definitely a memorable week.** MEU did an amazing job trying to recreate the whole experience of the EU political system: people played the roles of MEPs, Council ministers, interpreters, lobbyists and journalists. This post will be part report, and part MEP's diary for the week, but considering the number of roles and work and experiences that the event took in, its inevitably a snapshot from a (sometimes tired) MEP arguing for a few amendments in a sea of activity, as journalists filmed, took photos and published daily newspapers, interpreters strove to make sense of what MEPs were saying, lobbyists tried to persuade creatively (I even saw some €500 notes exchanging hands!), Council ministers maneuvered, and MEPs fought to make themselves and their opinions heard. And all in the grand setting of the Strasbourg Parliament building itself.

The two topics we had to deal with were a GMO Regulation proposal and the Returns directive proposal. Both went through the co-decision (or "ordinary legislative procedure" in today's Lisbon-slang), though due to time constraints (a phrase which became notorious over the course of the week), there was no conciliation committee at the end if the Council and Parliament failed to agree after 2 readings. Parliament started off with the GMO proposal, made amendments, then switched to the Returns directive to amend it and the Council's amendments, then finally switched back to the GMO proposal, as amended by the Council for the final vote to pass into law. (For the Council it was the same, just with the topics reversed). Before the simulation started, we had prepared for our roles - in the case of EP parties, we worked on common position papers - and in Strasbourg we had parliamentary procedure and debating workshops.

So this is my week as "S&D Romania".



**(In fact, two weeks: not only was there the event itself, but it happened to take place during perhaps the most news-filled week of the year, and then I had to take the scenic route home via Germany, the Netherlands and England. In February, when I went to The Hague, the Dutch government collapsed the day before I left. This time, there was the Polish plane crash, another plane crash, a French train strike, the biggest volcanic eruption in Europe for years, the grounding of nearly all European air travel, and the LibDems became popular in the UK. I'm expecting the US government to subsidise a trip to China for me any day now!)





In Parliament: Round #1: GMO Regulation.

The GMO Regulation aimed to regulated GM food and feed in the single market. It had been difficult finding out the Romanian S&D positions, and I'd done some research on GMOs in Romania, which had problems with contamination. The S&D as a whole wanted a lower threshold for contamination (which started off at 1% in the proposal, so something less than that) after which it would have to be labelled as a GM product. I lobbied for a small as lenient a threshold as possible for the position paper, though I was always going to be outvoted, so I tried lobbying for some sort of insurance against contamination, which was adopted as a negotiating position. Apart from that, we wanted stricter controls on GM and more frequent renewals for authorised GM, as well as more impartial scientific control over authorisation.

The Parliament (which took place in the S&D's party room in the Parliament building), consisted of 110 MEPs, and was dominated by the centre-right, like the real Parliament. The EPP had 42 MEPs to our 28. The Liberals tended to be the swing vote faction, and potentially decisive in passing amendments - though this only really struck us when it came to voting time!

Speech-wise the far left and far right were the stars, with loud (and at times worryingly charismatic) speeches on nationality and on the evils of capitalism. Lobbyists were also called in to be interviewed and questioned by Parliament. Though it started off easy-going, things got a lot harder when we realised that we had pretty much only dinner to draw up amendments, since we had a charity Gala that night. Our party split up into amendment groups, and I was in one on insurance. We ran into a few problems on what scheme to come up with and deciding on what would be the best way to phrase it so it would pass. We ended up with 2 good ideas but sadly - due to time constraints - we only put one forward. We proposed an insurance scheme that the authorisation holders would pay into to insure against the costs of any large scale damage caused by the crop even though authorisation conditions were complied with.

When Parliament opened again, there was a free-form secession, with MEPs running everywhere to make coalitions and sell their amendments. We tried speaking to some party leaders and any MEPs we could get our hands on (who were naturally delighted to be cornered on the issue of insurance!). Parliament then went through the amendments one by one, with MEPs introducing their amendments. There was a long debate on the threshold, the expense of labelling and on how often authorisation of GMOs should be renewed. When it came to the vote, I knew that we had the Greens and the United Left on our side for the insurance amendment, but that wouldn't be enough for it to pass. It could only pass if other parties split or MEPs rebelled against their party lines.

Luckily for us, the Liberals split (from what I could see of the red and green lights blinking on in front of their MEPs), and our insurance amendment passed by 56 to 52! (We only seemed to have all MEPs present for the final vote on Friday).

Unfortunately some good amendments that would have given the Parliament more oversight and control of the process were defeated, and the voting highlighted the need for more networking and lobbying. We then elected a Rapporteur to present the EP's amendments to the Council.


Round #2: Returns Directive.

A Council minister presented the Council's amendments to the Parliament before we quizzed him on the details. At this point most parties and MEPs seemed to switch to full human rights mode, and some of the right-wing parties acted slightly more left-wing (in some cases) than I expected. Once again the far-right EFD group and United Left had the most strident (and entertaining) speeches. [But a few of us weren't about to let them have all the fun, and we formed a kind of informal inter-party group. It's an old game, but we challenged each other to slip Father Ted and Star Wars references into our speeches in such a way as to make them seem a natural part of the speech. Though proclaiming that the Council might strike back may have been pushing it.]

Meanwhile, the insurance amendment must have been unexpected, and the Council asked for someone to be sent up to explain it. I volunteered, and got a grilling from the Dutch and Maltese ministers, whom I gave my best politician answers. The Council was sealed off from the public (and journalists and lobbyists), so it was only at lunch I could ask around to see how the amendment was fairing. The news wasn't good, though it seemed to depend on who was asked.

In the Parliament, however, the knives were definitely out as MEPs got ready to drastically rewrite the Council's amendments and the rest of the directive. Once again MEPs swarmed about the hemicycle trying to make alliances on amendments. I ended up talking to the EPP and ECR on rewriting a new article 15 that the Council had introduced. Worryingly, some parties became more fragmented towards the end and there were a few voting rebellions, though luckily the S&D group seemed to become more cohesive towards the end; article 15 seemed to be something we all generally agreed on though, and it passed with 104 votes.

It might have turned out to have aggravated the Council, though - from what I heard from the Council, they were always worried about what would and wouldn't pass through Parliament, while MEPs barely mentioned the Council. Council negotiations also sounded long and detailed, whereas MEPs were ruthless in cutting speaking time. Though the Council is more powerful and influential in real life, in the simulation sheer numbers meant that Ministers didn't have a big personal influence on MEPs, and didn't figure much in MEPs' political considerations, while the lack of the technical staff and advice meant that 27 people had to do the same amount of work that 110 people were doing in the EP. Perhaps having a team (1 Minister + aides) would help rebalance things and get more people involved?


Round #3: Final Vote.

The Council returned a heavily amended version of the GMO Regulation to Parliament, and the Minister presenting it had to deal with some typos in the text (which she did very well). It turned out that the insurance amendment had survived - thanks probably to QMV which meant there needed to be a super-majority to remove it. Though Parliament was unhappy with some of what was changed (and there were some serious typos), it was passed into law with 63 votes.


Overall MEU 2010 was a brilliant experience. It was hectic, meeting lots of new people, making speeches, working on amendments and alliances, and a full social programme with stuff to do every night (tours, parties, etc.). It was tiring but very rewarding, and I'd recommend it to everyone. The MEU 2010 website is here. I applied in January 2010, so I'm guessing that January 2011 will be the deadline month for participants next year. They also do national MEUs in some areas, so that might be worth looking into.

If you're wavering about going, then just go for it! I can't recommend it enough.

The Bloggingportal Initiative

Over at Bloggingportal.eu, there's an experiment to see how quickly something in the Citizen's Initiative format can be translated and what kind of problems this might throw up. The results will be part of a presentation on the Citizen's Initiative by some Bloggingportal editors at the re:publica 10 blogging convention in Berlin.

The text was only posted last night, but already there's been a great response, with translations into 22 languages! But more languages are needed (Czech, Slovak, Maltese etc. still haven't been done yet), and since the goal is to see how much time or organisation it would take to make a petition accessible linguistically, non-official languages are more than welcome too. Anyone know any Basque?

The deadline is early on Thursday morning, 15th April.

Also, Bloggingportal.eu is keen to find more editors who know their way around the Euroblogosphere, so if you want to help out, you can contact us here. Since we're always looking at how to make Bloggingportal more accessible and useful throughout Europe generally, it'd be great to get more help on the blogs in some of the less widely known languages (but that's not a requirement!).

The State of the Euroblogosphere

Thursday saw the first Euroblogosphere meet-up, and, despite being plagued by technical issues and general rebellion by the internet, it went quite well. An outrage of bloggers* gathered to discuss the language barrier, how to raise interest in and expand the Euroblogosphere, and to just chat generally.

The language barrier was the dominant issue, with several ideas being floated. While English is perhaps the most commonly spoken second language, restricting any translation effort into just English would be quite limiting on the Euroblogosphere, and would exclude many Europeans from the chance of getting involved. However, it's clear that any translation effort - even if focused on only a few interesting or influential articles - would be time-consuming, and labour intensive. The Euroblogosphere has proven very capable of making voluntary efforts - such as Bloggingportal.eu and the Gender Balanced Commission campaign - it's hard to see how a major translation effort could be sustained. Having a funded and specially designed blogging platform to bridge the language gap would seem to be a better option, but it too raises many technical, funding and presentational issues. A voluntary newsletter or summarising effort based around Bloggingportal.eu struck me as the best option.

Engagement was the most interesting issue for me. Nosemonkey made some good arguments about the exclusivity of the Euroblogosphere:

"What the Euroblogosphere needs is simple - a) more of us, and b) more passion. The EU is incredibly dull. The reason we've all got such little traffic is mostly because of this - but also because we're failing to make it sound interesting. The anti-EU blogs, meanwhile, are much more fun to read - because they've got real passion behind them (even if they're mostly based on lies and bullshit) [...] Anything that makes it sound interesting and relevant. The biggest problem with the Euroblogosphere is that it's a) very small, a, and b) most Eurobloggers haven't been doing it very long - which means that most of the coverage is very, very general. Loads of posts about what it means to be European, ideal reforms of the EU. It's all too theoretical. Political theory only engages geeks - for it to grow we need to engage the man/woman on the street. This is something the anti-EU blogs do very well - albeit through lies and bullshit."

As a Euroblogger, I'm definitely on the theoretical/institutional side of things, but I recognise the value in opening up to different aspects of EU politics. If we want to encourage growth and development in the Eurobloggersphere (more readership, more bloggers, and more engagement), then as a political blogosphere, we will probably have to move towards a more normal style of political blogging. This means blogging more on the left-right, government-opposition divide in the EU, because this is both the politics that matter more in day-to-day life, and the type of politics people can identify with more, and find easier to debate. "How far should the banks be regulated and how - and how is it playing out in Brussels and in the national capitals?" is a much more politically relevant question to people than the institutional development of Qualified Majority Voting. This brings up a few interesting points, though:

1. It's easier to write about institutional politics than just politics. Yes, I wrote that right - it really is easier. It's much easier to have an opinion on the high politics of institutional reform and Commission appointments than it is to follow policy debates. Policy debates and legislation take a lot of time and effort (and the patience of a recently canonised stone) to follow. The passage of legislation is slow; it pings back and forth from the Council to the Parliament, and is hard to track on the EU websites. Following months of negotiation on aspects of the single market may not be an appealing idea to prospective (and existing) Eurobloggers. And would people read it?

2. Lack of official engagement on the web. Or indeed in the media at large. Though there's plenty of officialese statements flowing from each of the institutions, there's very little in the way of media-friendly policy statements or active MEPs on the internet. While some dedicated Eurobloggers may track down and explain some policy areas, the high level of effort involved will mean that it would remain a minority of the Euroblogosphere. But perhaps the effort of trying to open up EU politics like this would encourage more MEP engagement and the media-isation of Brussels' political language?

3. Speed. Legislation is slow, and it's hard to maintain interest over the period to report on an issue in the same way a national blogger may do in a shorter time span.

4. Bloggers. You can't get bloggers to do anything, not even if you ask politely. So how can you encourage a move towards reporting on the party-political aspect of the EU (note that this shouldn't require becoming party-political for the bloggers themselves). Perhaps some sort of common call to look at this aspect of EU politics more? It should be an area that is interesting in and of itself for Eurobloggers. We can't ask or expect other bloggers to write about it, but hopefully some will pick it up, at least partially, and add their two eurocents. So how about it? Do you think it would be a good area to write about, even occasionally?

Despite the obstacles, I think it's at least worth a try. I won't be able to properly try until after Christmas, and the idea of Europe and how its institutions work will still be very interesting to me, but I'll try to write a bit more on the daily politics of the EU. It'll take some adjustment, so bear with me on this.

Also, interaction with national blogospheres will be important too. I'm not sure how much I can bring EU politics closer to Northern Ireland's regional politics, but I should (and will) try to interact more with national blogospheres. Again, it'll take a while to get going, since my time's a bit limited at the moment.

So, do you think it could work?




* I'm hoping to get "outrage" accepted as the collective noun for bloggers, since it's the most common natural state of blogging.

There's now a Chasing Brussels episode on the topic, with many Eurobloggers debating these issues.

An tAontas Eorpach agus Gaelige

On Tuesday, it was reported in the Irish Times that the Irish government wasn't living up to the responsibilities of promoting the first official language, Irish. The financial crisis seems to have weakened the government's commitment to Irish, with the Irish Language Commissioner, Séan Ó Cuirreáin, and his office launching more official investigations to investigate complaints. I think that this is a very telling finding from an investigation:

"The practice of actively removing every síneadh fada from the names and addresses of newborn children being registered for child benefit payments was found to be in breach of a commitment in the Department of Social and Family Affairs’s statutory language scheme."

Actively removing fadas (á, é, í, ó, ú)? Why? Why bother?

If the Irish Government is failing to ensure that language rights are protected, then what is the condition of Irish at the European level? Irish has been a treaty language since Ireland's entry in 1973, which meant that all of the EC/EU's Treaties would be in Irish as well as English, German, French, etc. However, Irish has only become an official language of the EU since 2007 (before this legislation didn't have to be translated into Irish).

Despite this status, only legislation produced by co-decision is translated into Irish, as per Regulation 920/2005, though this will be reviewed after 4 years and then again every 5 years.

Earlier in the week I attended a jobs talk, and one of the talks was by university professor, who had done freelance work for the EU institutions as a lawyer-linguist, on job opportunities in the EU. Apparently they are crying out for people with English as their mother tongue (and the Irish are doing quite well out of this since people from Britain simply don't seem to want to work for the EU), but the situation is much more serious for Irish, despite the limitations on translation requirements. It seems that, so far, not one person has passed the Irish part of the concours. Naturally, legal Irish is very different from every day Irish, and those who are capable of being lawyer-linguists in Irish are based in the Dublin administration, which does a lot of the Council translation for Irish.

Which is a real pity, since, despite the complaints about translation costs, I do admire how an effort is made to respect the different languages.

Unfortunately, my Irish doesn't go much further than a few phrases (though the accent helps), so it doesn't look like I'll be able to take advantage of it.

The Irish EU law site is here.