An article published on Eurolang
Brussel - Tuesday, 16 June 2009, written by Davyth Hicks
The European elections saw a mixed bag of results in terms of how
the new Parliament will be dealing with the issues faced by Europe’s
lesser-used language speakers and national minorities. On the plus side
the elections saw several MEPs elected who are proactive in their
support for lesser used languages and national minorities, on the
negative side activists will have to watch the right and far right MEPs
who have a record of denouncing national minorities.
The Parliament’s political groups are in negotiations this week
finalising the allocations of the various different parliamentary
posts. The final list of MEPs per state is yet to be published.
Below Eurolang focuses on some of the new and returning MEPs who will be active in supporting lesser used languages.
European Free Alliance
The
EFA comprising nationalists and regionalists from across Europe stood
on the most overtly pro-linguistic diversity manifesto. In the
Parliament they sit with Greens.
The EFA gained a
Corsican MEP, Francescu Alfonsi, who ran on a joint Greens-regionalist
(Régions et Peuples Solidaire) platform. Mr Oriol Junqueras comes in
from Catalonia for Esquerra Republica Catalunya, his term will be split
with Ana Miranda from Bloque Nacionalista Galego (Galicia). He replaces
Mikel Irujo.
Jill Evans (Plaid Cymru) was successful in
Wales, while the SNP just missed a third seat with Ian Hudghton and
Alyn Smyth re-elected. It is anticipated that they will be joined by
Bishop László Tokés who returns to represent the Transylvanian
Hungarians in the EFA. The Cornish party Mebyon Kernow, while not
gaining a seat, did well beating the Labour party and winning 7% of the
vote in Cornwall.
Greens
The Greens/
regionalist alliance had a huge success in France, equalling the
Socialist vote, gaining 8 seats, and winning 14 MEPs overall in France.
Nicole Kiil-Nielsen joins from Brittany. Several new Finnish Greens are
very supportive on Sami issues while Raul Romeva from the Catalan
Greens kept his seat.
EPP
Strong
supporters for the Hungarian national minorities are Kinga Gal and
Csaba Sogor who will go to the centre-right EPP group. The conservative
Fidesz party did well in Hungary returning language Intergroup members
György Schöpflin and Pal Schmitt. Slovakia sees Edit Bauer return for
the Hungarian party Magyar Koalíció Pártja, she will also sit with the
EPP.
ALDE
The new Swedish Finn MEP,
Carl Haglund, comes in to replace Henrik Lax. He will join Finnish MEP
Hannu Takkula in the Liberal ALDE group. Ramon Tremosa comes in for the
Catalan CiU party, and ex-speaker of the Basque Parliament, Izaskun
Bilbao, won for the Basque party (PNV).
GUE
Bairbre de Brun (Sinn Fein) held on to her seat with an increased majority.
ASDE (PES)
The
Socialists announced on Friday that they have formed alliance with the
Italian Democratic Party to create the Alliance of Socialists and
Democrats for Europe. Catalan Maria Badia i Cutchet, who helped
overturn this spring’s multilingualism report, comes back along with
Csaba Tabajdi from the Hungarian socialists.
Ones to watch
However,
despite the success of many progressive candidates the elections also
saw gains from the far right in central and eastern Europe, many of
which are noted for their hostility to national minorities and lesser
used languages.
Jobbik in Hungary campaign against the Roma
and won 3 seats; the Slovak National Party (1 seat) and the Greater
Romania Parties (3 seats) denounce the Hungarian national minority; and
Ataka, (2 seats) Bulgaria’s ultra-nationalist party, attacks, verbally,
that country’s ethnic Turks. The Freedom Party in Austria doubled its
vote to win 2 seats.
In Spain the conservative PP won the
most seats, one of their leading MEPs Mayor-Oreja stated before the
election that Basque, Catalan and Galician should not have official
status in the EU. In Brussels they sit with the EPP.
In
England, UKIP, despite their own MEP’s expenses scandal, a policy to
close down the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, as well as for
the UK to leave Europe, gained one seat giving them 13 seats. The far
right British National Party won two.
Meanwhile, Latvia
saw the last head of the Latvian Communist Party Alfreds Rubiks win.
Rubiks, who spent six years in prison for trying to overthrow the
country's first democratic government since the Second World War, has
made no secret of his dismay over the collapse of the Soviet Union.
(Eurolang 2009)