Article,

Régimen jur\'ıdico de las lenguas y reconocimiento de la diversidad lingü\'ıstica en el Tratado por el que se establece una Constitución para Europa

.
The recognition of language diversity and the legal regime governing languages in the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, (2004)

Abstract

The territory of the European Union is made up of a rich and wide-ranging universe of languages, which is not circumscribed to the «State languages». The existence of multilingualism is one of Europe s defining characteristics and it should remain so in the constantly evolving model of Europe s political structure. Nonetheless, until now, the official use of languages has been limited to the «State languages» and has been based on a concept of state monolingualism that has led to a first level of hierarchization among the languages of Europe. This has affected the very concept of European language diversity. The draft of the treaty establishing a European Constitution contains various language-related references that can be grouped in two major categories: on the one hand, those references having to do the constitutional status of languages, and on the other, those regarding the recognition of European language diversity. Both issues are dealt with in this article. In analyzing the legal regime governing languages set forth in the draft of the constitutional treaty, we note that the draft is not based on the concept of the official status of languages. The language regulation contained in the draft of the constitutional treaty is limited in character. The constitutional language regime is based on the concept of Constitutional languages but the official status of languages is not governed by this rule. The European Constitution merely enunciates rights governing language use for European citizens vis-à-vis the languages of the Constitution and refers the regulation of the official status of languages to the Council, which is empowered to set and modify that status by unanimous decision. Because of its broad scope, this constitutes a regulatory reservation. In the final phase of the negotiation process a second level of constitutional recognition of languages would be introduced, linked to those that are official languages in the member states (Catalan, Basque...

Tags

Users

  • @sofiagruiz92

Comments and Reviews