Principles on the citizens' communication rights and duties in a multilingual community such as the European Union

Do we need to include them in a Constitution of the Union?

Background:

Common citizenship and the Charter on Fundamental Rights have introduced and guarantee additional rights to the people in the European Union, but, in a multilingual community, where rights are guaranteed, such as freedom of movement and of residence (article 45), non-discrimination on grounds of nationality or language (article 21) and the right to vote and to stand as candidate at municipal elections (article 40), all actors of society(1) ) also have to face additional duties, in particular, concerning language use (communication) with each other.

In a community of people where equal treatment is the corner stone for mutual trust and long-term cohesion, only principles based on universal ideas like the "imperative of Kant" can be applied:
"Treat your neighbour in the same way as you want to be treated by him in the same situation!"

Also duties in communication (language use) have to be based on generally accepted principles.

Rights and duties in the communication

1. The "territorial principle"

Every citizen of the Union has the right to travel, to work and to move freely within the territory of the Member Sates, but every citizen shall accept, in the field of language use (communication), the legal and linguistic provisions that apply at the place concerned.
The rights and duties of every individual or legal personality communicating with public authorities

2. The "integration principle"

Every citizen of the Union has the right to reside freely within the territory of each Member State(article 45 of the Charter), and, every citizen has the right to vote and to stand as candidate, for example, at municipal elections in the Member States in which he or she resides under the same conditions as nationals of that State (article 40), but every citizen shall have a duty to integrate into the legal and linguistic framework of the place concerned, in particular, as to the official language(s) used in administration and communication with public authorities.
Rights and duties of citizens who settle in a municipality having another official language (or other official languages)

3. the "historic' principle" or "principle of protecting smaller cultural and linguistic communities"

Every member of a political party has the right to freedom of expression (article 11 of the Charter) and the right to freedom of thought (article 10 of the Charter), but all parties or democratic majorities following elections shall respect the official public heritage of small communities and their public traditions in culture, language(s) and religion. In particular, the official language used (communication) of such linguistic communities cannot be subject to revision, unless the (historic) language community concerned wishes to alter its own communication rights.
Rights and duties for all political parties, associations, movements or groups

4. The "non-discrimination principle"

Every person may write to the institutions of the European Union in one of the languages of the Treaties and shall receive an answer in the same language; everyone has also the right to read the official and legal texts of the Union in one of the official languages, and, any political representative has the right, in his official function at the EU level to express him/herself in one of these languages, and, even to ask for interpretation, if he/she needs it (external and political mandate aspect of the EU institutions), but, without prejudice to the institutional autonomy, each Institution at the European level has the right to organise its daily professional activities according to criteria like rationality, efficiency and good administration, including its internal communication. As long as this communication is based on a national language, discrimination for staff members of other languages persists; the competent bodies at the Union level and in Member States have therefore the duty to promote research on language solutions (2)), where the professional and internal communication between staff members is based on the principle of non-discrimination.
Rights and duties for the decision making bodies of the EU and of the Member States

5. The "unity in diversity principle"

Member States of the Union have the right to organise their educational system and the method of language learning according to their constitutional framework and their respective priorities, but, without prejudice to the repartition of competencies within Member States, the authorities responsible for education and language teaching have also the duty to prepare the citizen for the private and professional challenges in communication within a multilingual community like the European Union.
Ministers for culture and education in the EU have already decided for this purpose, that every pupil coming out of school, should master, besides his/her mother tongue, two other languages. If one language is used for inter-ethnic and international communication and one for guaranteeing linguistic diversity and enabling better understanding of the neighbour's language, than the target 'unity in diversity' could be realised. If, furthermore, the common language for inter-ethnic communication is aims to be non-discriminatory, the competent decision making bodies in the Member States and the Union shall test on the basis of scientifically controlled experiments the capacity and limits of so-called planned languages (like Esperanto), in particular, the aspect as to whether such a universal and logic language model without exceptions can be used as a pedagogical instrument (as Latin in the Middle Ages) to facilitate and accelerate learning of the first foreign (target) language.
Such an approach in language instruction could also help local and regional language speakers to learn more quickly and easily the common national language(s) and to communicate at the same time with citizens of other parts of the Union and the world.
Rights and duties of the authorities responsible for education in Member States

The above mentioned duties are linked to the citizenship of the Union (article 7 of the draft Constitution). As the Charter on fundamental rights will be part of the Constitution, the principles involved should be summarised in the form of "the citizens' communication rights and duties" either in article 7 the Constitution or as a specific article dealing with the democratic life and/or language use (communication) in the EU.

On behalf of the
" Working group on the language problem in the European Union"
and the " Forum for language rights and cultural diversity"

H. Erasmus and M. Cwik
Version: 6.5.2003

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(1) such as the citizen, the political parties, the public authorities, the educational sector and the democratic and political institutions in the Union and in the Member States

(2) such as universal language models or planned languages like Interlingua, Esperanto, Novial, Glossa or others, by undertaking feasibility studies and language experiments in this field