EDITORIAL

In spite of the apparent acceptance of the political discourse in favour of linguistic diversity, which is widely endorsed, at least formally, by most parties with some power share at the local, national, state and EU level, such positive attitude contrasts with the position adopted by certain agents who insist on perpetuating an unequal diversity of languages and on omitting positive discrimination measures in favour of the weakest languages, in sociolinguistic terms of functionality and prestige. This is the case of the new government of the Autonomous Community of the Balearic Islands (Partido Popular), as it has adopted Decree 162/2003 (reproduced in the present issue of our Bulletin along with another decree modifying it partially), according to which the requirement of Catalan language command (being Catalan the language proper to the islands, with a co-official status alongside Castilian) for admission in positions in several fields of the public Administration has been reduced.

We also include in this issue a brief legal text recently adopted by the Estonian Parliament modifying the Language Law, by making the categories of Estonian language professional proficiency equal to the obligatory level of Estonian Language proficiency.

As regards the international scenario, on the one hand we have to draw attention to a step forward within the framework of the EU in stressing the importance of linguistic diversity: a report was adopted in January by the European Parliament on the European Union’s convenience and need to preserve and promote cultural diversity, both domestically and in international relations. The wording of the report, which includes several references to the respect of linguistic diversity as a guarantee for cultural richness and makes a call for international cooperation in this direction, will make it become a text of reference for all those who, convinced of these postulates, believe that from a legal or ethical perspective such respect must necessarily include all European languages (and, by extension, of the world), as well as the rights of speakers to use them in the widest scope of fields possible.

On the other hand, we also reproduce a EU Committee of the Regions’ Opinion on the new European Commission’s Action Plan 2004-2006 on “Promoting language learning and linguistic diversity”. In general terms, this committee is favourable to the adoption of such measures as the ones put forward by the European Commission.

Last, we include a resolution by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers on the implementation of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities by Austria. In this resolution several shortcomings in the use of minority languages are highlighted, as for instance in relations with the administrative authorities in Carinthia and Burgenland (Hungarian), in the display of bilingual topographical indications in Carinthia (Slovenian) and in education (Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Croatian and Slovenian).

We finally would like to underline the role of the European Commission and the European institutions in general concerning the explicit recognition of and support to the viability of linguistic diversity beyond languages with a “state”, “international” or “official” status. This was indeed one of the issues discussed at the 2nd Mercator International Symposium, organised by the Mercator-Legislation centre of Barcelona and held at Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona on 27-28 February 2004. Mercator-Legislation intends to make available on-line (at http://www.ciemen.org/mercator) the contents of the criticism and comments provided by the numerous experts gathered at the symposium. We honestly thank all of them for their participation at the symposium.