II Simposi Internacional Mercator: Europa 2004: Un nou marc per a totes les llengües? 27-28 / 2 / 2004 II Mercator International Symposium: Europe 2004: A new framework for all languages? Tarragona - Catalunya 1 “United in diversity”: Some thoughts on the new motto of the enlarged Union 1 Gabriel N. Toggenburg 2 European Academy Bolzano, Italy 1. EU-enlargement: a diversity-increasing adventure "Kindermund tut Wahrheit kund. " This German saying tells us that children tend to have a feeling for the right view of reality, and the new EU motto confirms this thesis. Over 100 Conventioneers in Brussels decided at end of 2003 that the revamped and enlarged EU needs a motto and that it should be: "united in diversity". 3 This proposal is not new. After a selection process from amongst over 2,000 proposals sent in by 80,000 schoolchildren in the EU member States, “ in varietate concordia” was proposed in the EU Parliament on 4 May 2000 as the EU’s future motto. 4 It is hard to say whether the "fathers and mothers" of the new EU constitution really drew upon this proposal of their grandchildren’s generation. But it is easy to say that the pupils had the right feeling when it comes to the future of Europe. The first of May stands for an enormous “more”. Ten more EU member States, 75 million more EU citizens, and the Union’s physical size is extended by 738,000 square kilometres. But enlargement does not result in “more of the same”. Quite to the contrary - Eastern enlargement is a process of diversification. It furnishes the Union with ten new EU languages, a plethora of new potential alliances between states all over Europe, ten hitherto rather unknown national cultures, and countless minority languages and cultures which will more than double the number of minority groups existing in the EU 15 so far! 5 Through enlargement, the European Union will find itself in direct contact with new neighbours such as Russia, Ukraine or Byelorussia, which from a "Western" perspective used to be vaguely located in very distant places somewhere in “the East”. From this point on, cultural horizons will have to be expanded, traditional stereotypes held up for critical assessment. The Union must get to know a more complete (and more complex) story of Europe’s historic heritage - one that reflects the views on both sides of the former Iron Curtain. With May 2004, the two notions of "we" and "the others" are getting seriously reshuffled. Enlargement and its diversity input can result in a dilution of what is often referred to as "the European identity” (some cynically hold that this is the true reason why the UK had sympathies for Eastern enlargement from the beginning, and why the US is such an ardent backer of Turkey’s accession to the Union). On the other hand, the “diversity-impact” of Eastern enlargement also has the potential to result in a rise in interaction, creativity, innovation, mobility, motivation, and yes, in a new start towards a stronger continent, strengthening the European voice on this globe. It is submitted here that this fateful decision will hardly depend on the diversity issue per se . Diversity in the end might turn out to be mainly a catalyst: to the good if European politics and 1 This article has been published in a slightly shorter version as “Unification via Diversification – what does it mean to be “united in diversity”?“ by the EUMAP Online Journal, Feature E-day, 1 may 2004, http://www.eumap.org/journal/features/2004/bigday/diversity/ 2 Researcher at the EURAC Bolzano/Bozen, http://www.eurac.edu 3 See Art. IV-0 of the “Draft treaty establishing a constitution for Europe”, 18 July 2003, CONV 850/03, p.5, http://european-convention.eu.int/docs/Treaty/cv00850.en03.pdf 4 See e.g. http://www.ouestfrance-ecole.com/accueil_detail.asp?idDOC=2138 5 See in this respect the “Bolzano/Bozen Declaration” - a set of EU-policy recommendations launched by an international group of experts on 1 May 2004. The proposals draw the lessons from the accession process and call on the Union to design its future policies vis a vis minorities as well as the future interplay between the international actors in the field of minority protection. For details and the full text see http://www.eurac.edu/pecede