Something tells me the French have a lot to do with it. And well, Euskera did not get a lot of help from our Irish friends.
Anyway, there is those in the Basque Country pointing out this problem and they are asking people to show their opposition.
Here is the note at Berria:
EHE: “The European Constitutional Treaty is a clear move to make the linguistic conflict worse”
They have urged all Basque language supporters and members of the public to vote against in the referendum on the Constitution
Aitziber Laskibar – BILBO
The recognition of the Basque Country, linguistic rights and a language community. If the future of the Basque language is to be assured, an awareness of these three principles is essential, according to the EHE (In Basque in the Basque Country) group.
The European Constitutional Treaty does not include a single one of these concepts, and so the group believes that its endorsement would be damaging both for Euskal Herria and for Euskara, the Basque language.
So all Basque language supporters and members of the public are being urged to vote against the Constitution in the referendum scheduled for February 20 in the Southern Basque Country, because, in the EHE’s view, “it is vitally important for the members of the Basque public to make their voices clearly heard in defence of their identity”. In connection with this the EHE has called on people to join a demonstration on February 12 in Bilbo organised by numerous social players.
.... ... .
It seems to be more an economic/infraestructural problem than a political one.
ReplyDeleteA friend currently working at the european Parliament in Brussels told me that it would be impossible for the EU to mantain a permanent crew of translators for all the languages of these regions (Galego, Euzkara, Català, Gaelic, Flemish, a couple of Swish Cantonese, ...) to every other language. He also stated that the entrance of the new countries to the EU past year forced the EU to build a new building only for translators and to introduce mayor reforms in the parliament's building and that it was going to take more than five years for them to translate all the documents to each of the new official languages.