The neutrality of a political party: Exploring language policies and activism for Esperanto in the European Parliamentary elections

Guilherme FiansUniversity of Manchester

Abstract: Since the Esperanto speech community cannot rely on intergenerational transmission to guarantee its long-standing continuity, the Esperanto movement emerges as an attempted solution to stabilise this community by promoting the language and encouraging a continuous engagement with it. In this sense, one of the most interesting wings of the current neutral Esperanto movement in Europe is the political party Europe-Democracy-Esperanto (EDE), which launches candidates for the European Parliamentary elections and uses the electoral campaigns as a platform to promote this language. Through a socio-anthropological approach, based on a long-term fieldwork carried out among Esperanto speakers and supporters in France, I will explore some aspects of EDE’s actions, focusing on a controversy: how can a political party be rendered neutral? From this initial interrogation, I will explore the diverse definitions of neutrality held by Esperantists as a way to approach how a concept of neutral politics is strategically mobilised as a tool in the discussion among this party’s members. I will also examine how the outcomes of this party’s actions are seen by its members in terms of success and failure, and how the issue of neutrality and political engagement reappears in this discussion.

1. Introduction

Having its fundamentals launched in 1887, Esperanto has surpassed its 130 years of existence and constant use, consolidating itself through a full-fledged speech community. However, as a planned language that developed a sizeable speech community without ever being taught as a compulsory language and without being widely spoken in a given location by constant face-to-face interactions, one of the challenges imposed to Esperanto is how to create and to maintain such speech community. Most languages are taught at home or at schools and regularly spoken by a local or national speech community, which helps to stabilise their use. Nonetheless, when it comes to Esperanto, the continuation of such community cannot rely entirely on intergenerational transmission, in spite of the existence of Esperanto speakers from birth (Miner 2011)1, since, as highlighted by Sabine Fiedler (2012), the relatively small number of people speaking it from birth would not be enough for that.

1 In exploring the linguistic status of those who speak Esperanto as a mother tongue, Miner (2011: 27-30) suggests a distinction between native Esperanto speakers and Esperanto speakers from birth. By sticking to the Esperanto term denaskulo, Fiedler (2012) also explores the fact that the language use of those who learned Esperanto from birth is not norm-providing.

1

In face of this issue, the Esperanto movement2 emerges as a response to the instability and to the voluntary engagement that characterises people’s use of this language and participation in this community. Through a social movement aimed at promoting the learning and the use of this language, this community is rendered more stable.

At the same time, an idea widely circulated and supported by Esperanto speakers and supporters since the early days of this language is that of neutrality: broadly speaking, if Esperanto is oriented towards being spoken and supported by virtually anyone, it must be a neutral language, friendly and open to everyone. The definition of neutrality, though, so dear to Esperantists, is not so unequivocal: Esperanto is claimed to be a neutral language, but these claims take many forms, which produces some controversies, expressed especially in the concept of “neutral Esperanto movement”.

In being a social movement, the Esperanto movement directly calls into question these very definitions of neutrality: if something is being promoted and supported, how can this movement be neutral? How can it move towards something without compromising neutrality? Following from these issues, this article aims to explore varying definitions of neutrality among Esperantists3 from one of its instances: the political party Europe-Democracy-Esperanto (EDE).

Through a socio-anthropological approach, based on a long-term fieldwork carried out among Esperantists in Paris, France – which included mainly attendance of meetings, archive research, interviews and participant observation – I will present and debate these issues from the standpoint of members of this political party, mainly from its French branch EDE France, which launches candidates to the European Parliament and which carries out most of its discussions by Skype and telephone meetings, as well as through a mailing list. By exploring the functioning of the political bodies of the European Union and the political campaigns carried out by EDE, I will attempt to unpack the concept of neutrality and relate it to debates on political activism, analysing how the claim of Esperanto being neutral plays a role in this political party and how a concept of neutral politics is strategically mobilised as a tool in the discussion among this party’s members. I will also examine how the outcomes of this party’s actions are seen by its members in terms of success and failure, and how the issue of neutrality and political engagement reappears in this discussion.

2. We are either political or we are nothing!

In March 2018, some European political parties, associations and social movements signed a petition encouraging the European Council to take action against global warming and supporting the meeting the council was about to hold to discuss the European climate

2 When referring to the Esperanto movement, in the singular, I am using the ethnographic concept mobilised by this speech community, but bearing in mind that social movements are not homogeneous entities, but instead “complex sets of groups, organizations, and actions that may have different goals as well as different strategies for reaching their aims” (Giugni 1999: xx)3 In this article, I use the term “Esperanto speaker” to refer to those whose engagements with Esperanto are mostly restricted to the learning and occasional use of the language, whereas “Esperanto supporters” and “Esperantists”, used here interchangeably, indicate those who participate more actively in this speech community and/or support the promotion of the language.

2

strategy. One of the political parties that could have signed this petition is a small one called EDE, Europe-Democracy-Esperanto. EDE was founded in 2003 as a European-based federation that nowadays has national branches and support groups in France, Germany, Poland and Hungary. It launches candidates for the European Parliamentary elections, aiming at using the political framework of the European Union to support democracy and to propose Esperanto as a key tool for democracy in the EU, so as European citizens can have a more egalitarian common language that neither is a national language nor belongs to any specific people. Since English, French and German are the procedural languages in the political structure of the EU (European Commission 2013), native speakers of these languages would have a more effective political participation. In contrast, Esperanto could be learned by everyone without belonging to anyone, enabling every citizen to have a voice and to be heard at European level, which would also encourage the functioning of the EU in a more open government-like way, enabling citizens to have a more effective access to EU political documentation and a closer participation in decisions on the EU politics.

However, the members of EDE Europe – the federation that brings together the party’s branches and support groups from different European countries and that holds its discussions in Esperanto – debated this topic in their mailing list and did not reach an agreement on whether to sign this petition or not. While some seemed to be enthusiastic about this petition as a tool to give more visibility to their political party and to broaden their agenda, Pascal 4, one of its members, replied to the email by asking: “How does it relate to Esperanto?”.

This question drew people’s attention away to another set of issues, and some controversies and tensions quickly arose. Richard, another member of the party, immediately replied: “It’s not directly related to Esperanto, but I think that if EDE wants to present itself as a political party, it should have some ideas also on broader issues affecting Europe nowadays, and climate change is one of them. […] Of course our core topics are democracy and Esperanto, but these are not enough for a real party”.

Pascal resumed the discussion by saying: “Why should EDE be a ‘real party’? Many people don’t trust political parties anymore, so why should we try to become something people don’t like? Why, instead of doing like other parties – to talk, to make promises, to lie – can’t we simply tell Europeans that, thanks to Esperanto, we can give back to everyone the right to debate and decide together?”.

In trying to put an end to the discussion, Richard argued: “Well, if you don’t want it to become a real party, you can keep talking about Esperanto all the time. But I doubt it will gain supporters and votes… Besides, if you only want to talk about Esperanto, you need neither a political party nor a political programme”. To what Pascal struck back:

Build a political agenda is the best way of arguing forever among ourselves and of wasting the time we could be devoting to promote Esperanto, simply because, apart from Esperanto, every Esperantist has their own personal points of view on politics. Esperanto is a universal language, which means, for everyone, irrespective of the persons. Thus, it is natural that among us we can find all kinds of opinions about everything – apart from, maybe, about the utility of Esperanto.

4 All the names in this article are pseudonyms, in order to preserve the identity of my interlocutors.

3

Other party members joined the discussion in the mailing list, most of them supporting Richard and arguing that having only one point in their agenda would prevent EDE from being taken seriously. Later, when the discussion was coming to a closure, Klaus intervened:

I’m an ex-member of EDE Germany, and from time to time I read some news from the party. I’ve been noticing more and more that EDE is becoming a weird party: it wants to be a political party and many of its members affirm that they don’t want to deal with politics. They even suggest that politics is only about fighting. It reminds me of a German saying: those who sleep in a democracy shouldn’t be surprised in case they wake up in a dictatorship. Would those at EDE who are against a political programme be happy with a dictatorship? […]

PS 1: The very proposal of suggesting Esperanto as a common language for peoples is a (language) political action.

PS2: The reputation of Esperanto depends on the reputation of those who use it. If we appear to the public with weird ideas, we won’t need to promote Esperanto anymore: we will have already reached the opposite.

In Germany, there are around 130 parties and I have the impression that only from 10 to 30 deal with politics – the others are ludicrous [fantaziuloj]. I’m afraid EDE would contribute to damaging the reputation of Esperanto if it doesn’t present a political programme soon. Richard, keep up with your good work. Write a programme, a good, complete programme! Even a political one!

As later highlighted by Jacques, in the continuation of this debate, the issue of neutrality has been a hot topic among members of the EDE since the early days of the party. Even though this specific email exchange did not go further, the discussion was far from being concluded. This dispute started with the petition to support the meeting of the European Council on climate strategies – but similar controversies also arise within EDE when it comes to supporting refugees or debating military strategies involving European countries. In the view of those who want this party to be restricted to Esperanto, a political programme would cause internal clashes and associate this language with specific political causes in Europe, whereas EDE should be neutral and not support any specific political stance. Even though the party does not present itself officially as being neutral, this idea is often brought to internal discussions on how can a political party be neutral: would it mean not supporting any cause? To what extent would it still be a full-fledged political party?

3. A political party in search of an agenda

Since its foundation, EDE aims at promoting Esperanto within the European Union, using the political structure and media coverage5 offered by the union to spread the word about this language at European level. EDE proposes electoral lists of candidates running to the European Parliament every five years, when these elections take place. Its first participation in an election was in 2004, when the French branch of the party succeeded to gather the number of signatures necessary for EDE to launch its candidates to represent 5 Since the European Parliamentary elections are less obtrusive than national elections in European countries, the scope for media effects tend to be greater in these elections than in the national ones (Strömbäck et al., 2013).

4

France in the EU Parliament. EDE has supporters in many European countries, and has been launching candidates since then: in the 2009 and 2014 elections, both the French and the German branches of the party had their lists of candidates, although none of them had been elected.

The programme presented by EDE is organised around the three words that compose the party’s name. When it comes to Europe, this party advocates the acknowledgement of the EU’s internationality, supporting, for instance, the inclusion of European and ecological perspectives in History classes at school programmes, so as children can see themselves as part of an effective European community. In terms of democracy, it defends international democracy for the EU, emphasising the decentralisation of decisions and the empowerment of citizen’s initiatives and highlighting that every citizen must be heard during processes of decision-making. Furthermore, the most elaborated part of their programme, Esperanto: defence of language rights and language minorities, protection of the environment – which entails both natural and social aspects of it and includes language diversity – and support of a real and democratic multilingualism in the EU, so as every European language can be effectively and equally used in European political bodies and that Esperanto can be included, as well as taught in European schools6, as a neutral language –which adds another definition of neutrality to be considered later.

This political programme is oriented to the elections for the European Parliament. Every five years, the 28 member states of the EU elect, through direct suffrage, their 751 representatives at European level, the number of representatives being allocated according to the population of each member state, by proportional representation. The members of the Parliament sit in political groups according to their affiliations, rather than by nationality. Regarding languages, the Parliament uses as its working languages the 24 official languages of the EU, declared official by its 28 member states. In practice, it means that any European citizen can contact the Parliament in one of these languages and has the right to receive a reply in the same language. As explained in the European Parliament’s website 7, in the Parliamentary meetings and summits, all official languages can be equally used and all the members have the right to address the Parliament in the official language of their choice – which requires a huge investment in translation and interpretation from the part of the EU. Nonetheless, faced with such diversity, the EU’s procedural languages – English, French and German – end up being used more often.

It is towards this that EDE orients its political agenda: even though the existence and valorisation of these 24 working languages make room for an appreciation of multilingualism as a reflection of the cultural and language diversity of the countries that constitute the EU, their use in practice turns out to be costly, difficult to manage and, in EDE’s assessment, inequitable. Drawing upon the arguments put forward by François Grin in his report to the French government on foreign language teaching (Grin 2005), EDE stresses how the current linguistic regime of the European political bodies is ineffective, due to its high costs and to the

6 Beyond the scope of EDE, French Esperanto associations also favour the teaching of Esperanto as an optional language in the French education system through the project L’espéranto au bac.7 This website displays a specific page on multilingualism, explaining how language diversity is valued and carried out by the Parliament.

5

extensive interpreting and translation that must be always available in these institutions, translating to and from 24 languages in countless possible combinations.

According to the EU legislation, all its official languages enjoy equal status, which renders the Parliament linguistically more transparent and enables every European citizen to stand for its election, irrespective of their command of the most frequently used languages. However, despite this equality of rights, the procedural languages prevail in the speeches and communications in the Parliament, and having a good command in these languages still guarantees clearer and more direct ways of addressing the other members of the Parliament. Despite the work or translators and interpreters, those who do not speak the most used languages may have to wait longer to have access to the minutes and reports originally written in English, French or German. Also, despite the interpreting in the plenary sessions, the less formal but equally important conversations beyond the assemblies, in the corridors of the Parliament or elsewhere, cannot rely on the service of interpreters, which would reduce the impact of the contribution of those who do not speak the procedural languages.

Faced with these issues, EDE proposes Esperanto as one more language to be added to the pool of working languages of the EU. In this way, when advertising its electoral lists to run to the Parliament, EDE also uses the media coverage and the space devoted to these political campaigns to advance their cause on language rights and language equality and to promote Esperanto since, as a political party, they have the right, among other things, to have some minutes on the radio and television campaigns in electoral years. Within the scope of this space in the media, the radio campaign of EDE France in 2009 started with a dialogue, in French, between a man and a woman:

- With the European Union, we don’t know exactly where we’re going. And the worst thing is that we cannot debate altogether as citizens.

- You’re right, the EU brought together our economies, our states, but it didn’t succeed yet to bring its inhabitants together. To move Europe forward, we would have to give to the European citizens the means to express their ideas and to be heard.

- Yes, but, for that, we would have to able to communicate with our neighbours, but how?

- Look, I speak Esperanto, a living language that is rich and, above all, equitable. Why couldn’t it be the common language of the EU? Esperanto would mean international communication finally made available to the many and an ally to all the languages.

In this vein, EDE’s agenda depicts Esperanto not only as a neutral language that would make communication easier within the EU political-institutional framework, but also among its citizens, bringing decision-making processes closer to the citizens and making communication and politics more accessible to every European. Complementing the economic and governmental integrations enabled by the EU, another integration would be lacking: that of the peoples, which would be rendered possible through equitable communication. Such equitability is at the core of EDE’s project, arguably constituting its only concrete proposal for the EU. And the question previously asked remains, echoing in the discussion among the party members in the mailing list: would this be enough to constitute a political party in its own

6

right? What, if something, could be added to this agenda without compromising the neutrality expected from EDE by some of its members?

4. How neutral can neutrality be?

Political parties are often associated with power, political engagements, agendas, activism, influence over public policies, and causes to be advanced (LaPalombara and Anderson 1992). EDE, in contrast, attempts to reconcile these with neutrality. As highlighted in the discussion in the mailing list, if EDE restricts its agenda to Esperanto and to democracy in Europe, it would remain, in the point of view of its members, largely neutral as a party, since it would still make room for different political perspectives about any other topic among the party members and supporters. In addition, this party puts forward the argument of Esperanto as a neutral language in order to appeal to as many people as possible, irrespective of their profile, nationalities and political interests. Also adding up to the controversies on neutrality, EDE is listed as a specialist association [faka asocio] linked to UEA, the Universal Esperanto Association. UEA is the largest Esperanto-related international organisation, counting on individual members and linked associations from around 120 countries over the world. Besides, UEA plays the role of articulating the neutral Esperanto movement, being, therefore, the ultimate representative of Esperanto’s neutrality. In this fashion, how can politics be both ingrained and excluded from the actions taken by a political party that, as such, is expected to be political?

These controversies arise from the multiple meanings of neutrality at stake here. Historically, the first definitions of Esperanto’s neutrality were formulated by Lazar Ludwig Zamenhof – the initiator of the language – and in the Declaration of the Essence of Esperantism, endorsed by Zamenhof and by the participants of the First International Congress of Esperanto, in Boulogne-sur-Mer, in 1905. In its first article, this declaration states that:

Esperantism is an effort to spread throughout the world the use of a neutrally human language, which “without imposing itself in the internal life of the peoples and without trying to replace existing national languages”, would give to the persons of different nations the possibility of understanding each other […]. Any other idea or hope which this or that Esperantist links to Esperantism is their purely private affair, for which Esperantism cannot be held responsible (reproduced in Dietterle 1929: 237).

Following from this statement, according to which Esperanto is a “neutrally human language” and, as such, cannot be directly associated with any other idea or stance, many tensions and controversies arose on how neutral could and should Esperanto really be. Against this background, Zamenhof tried to address this issue by highlighting that being neutral is not an absence of outlooks, but an outlook in its own right – which could be compared, in general terms, with an active decision of not making decisions (Sartre 2007: 44). By a “neutrally human language”, Esperantism directs Esperanto towards every manifestation of human life, irrespective of national differences, conveying a willingness to communicate internationally beyond ethnic, national, and language barriers. Similarly, in not being responsible for, but in not restricting any further ideal or hope that can be connected to the language, Esperanto is displaying an openness to be used by anyone, for any purpose. Zamenhof’s proposed

7

definition of neutrality, therefore, encompasses having a particular cosmopolitan approach (Fians 2018), rather than an absence of outlooks.

This definition, however, is not consensual and, throughout time, many complementary and competing characterisations of neutrality have been formulated, leading to tensions among speakers and supporters on which neutrality was to be expected from Esperanto and to what extent such neutrality should be aspired or not. Federico Gobbo (2017: 41-43) explores some of the shifting approaches to neutrality and to language ideologies within the Esperanto movement, ranging from the idea of this language as a tool to be used for every purpose to, later, an ideological trait that prevented Esperantists from associating political engagements with Esperanto. These tensions culminated, in the interwar period, in open conflicts between the two historically central wings of the Esperanto movement: the neutral and the workers’, left-wing Esperanto movements. These clashes led neutralism to be regarded as the feature responsible for Esperanto’s survival and relative success and, alternatively, as something that disempowered Esperantists as a community and movement.

Coming back to the debate on neutrality within EDE, some of these definitions play roles in establishing the political lines of the party and, in many of these internal debates, the neutrality often associated with Esperanto is enlarged so as to also encompass the political party. By unpacking some instances of this claim, we can analyse how EDE juggles activism, political engagement, and neutrality.

One of the arguments put forward in favour of Esperanto is that it is linguistically neutral. As Esperanto is not officially or regularly spoken by any geographically bounded people or group and as it is not any people’s language, it can, therefore, be everyone’s. Nevertheless, even though Esperanto is not a European language per se, its structure is largely Eurocentric, fundamentally drawn upon Latin, Germanic and Slavic languages. Since, as previously said, Esperanto does not belong to any people in its origins, it may be considered more neutral than any local or national language in this sense, but its seeming linguistic neutrality is often queried. As argued by Philippe Van Parijs (2011: 39-46), despite Esperanto being simpler and offering a straightforward relationship between oral and written forms, it cannot claim to be linguistically neutral, since it is not equidistant from all existing languages.

Another instance of Esperanto’s neutrality refers to this language being neutral in terms of power. As asserted by Robert Phillipson (1992), the most widespread languages became so due to imperialist actions, being colonialism one of the most important tools to turn some languages into dominant codes of communication. In his study, Phillipson explores mostly the international status of English: according to him, English became a commodity to the extent that its native speakers from core English-speaking countries have more educational and job opportunities, especially through the consolidation of the language learning market, whereas native speakers of other languages who are not functional in English or who cannot speak the standard variation of English may have less opportunities, being often belittled and accused of having limited communication skills to address international audiences. In being so, linguistic imperialism creates hierarchies not only among languages, but also among variations of a language, in which the variation considered to be the standard is more valued than others. By the same token, the dominance of a language also helps to establish the hegemony of

8

commodities in science, media and education conveyed in the dominant language, increasing its reach and limiting the access to these commodities to those who master this language, which reinforces linguistic and social inequalities.

If, following this rationale, some languages become powerful for being used and imposed by powerful states8, it does not come as a surprise if this power relation establishes a vicious circle that increases the importance of the concerned states and the culture, science and information conveyed in their languages. Esperanto, in turn, is aimed at challenging this logic by not being linked to any state and by being purposefully powerless. As it is not imposed and not associated with powerful bodies, Esperanto is meant to be only studied, used and supported by those who choose to do so – displaying, hence, a more voluntary, rather than compulsory, character. Furthermore, Esperanto’s restricted instrumentality – in other words, it having a limited applicability in the job market and not being an official language anywhere – places it in a position of being less linked to power. However, this neutrality in terms of power can also be contested, as brilliantly pinpointed by Monica Heller (2017), when she comments on the history and the diffusion of Esperanto:

As is so often the case when recounting stories of hegemony and capitalism, the story of artificial languages starts out as a very European story, then jumps to Asia and North America, and now is all over the place, including other (albeit imaginary) planets. In this respect, the story largely follows the path of political and economic power (2017: 13).

Closely connected to these previous points, there is also the assertion of Esperanto being internationally neutral: again, if it does not belong to any specific people, it can become anyone’s language, in a scenario in which no people could claim to master the standard, most valued variety of the language and would, virtually, have equal access to opportunities regarding the language and its outcomes. By challenging power, authority, language nativeness and language privileges, Esperanto would create settings in which international communication would be carried out on a more equal footing: this language would not solve every social problem, but would try and tackle the linguistic wing of inequality and discrimination in contacts among people from different national and language backgrounds.

Another understanding of neutrality comes from the perspective of the neutral Esperanto movement, headed by UEA. UEA is the Esperanto-related organisation that attempts to remain truer to Zamenhof’s plea, considering neutrality mostly in terms of openness: by being a neutral association, it aims at welcoming everyone who is interested in engaging with Esperanto, which, in turn, is a neutral language insofar as is made for everyone’s use and anyone’s ownership9. Once more, internationality, openness and a certain refusal of power and authority seem to constitute the core of Esperanto’s neutrality, defined in different ways according to the circumstances at stake.

8 Again about English, as put by Michel Onfray (2018): “[English] is the dominant language because it is the language of the dominant civilisation”.9 It is interesting to notice that, in the Declaration on the Essence of Esperantism (reproduced in Dietterle 1929: 237-239), Zamenhof publicly states that, as the creator of the fundamentals of the language, he claims no ownership of it, as it belongs to its developing speech community, which is also responsible for evolving the language through its use.

9

Moreover, UEA also appeals to neutrality with respect to political engagement: in backing the promotion of Esperanto in every form, insofar as it respects the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations, UEA does not rule on how each Esperanto-related organisation and each Esperantist will use and advance this language. This engagement-wise neutrality, which could be seen as apolitical and approximated to the idea of impartiality, is often questioned for being subjected to the UN’s framework – which would reveal its Western orientation and, thus, undermine its effective impartiality. However, given the tensions raised by unsuccessful attempts of tolerance and coexistence between Esperantists and Nazi-fascists in the past – as described in details by Lins (2016, 2017) and Forster (1982: 218-233) – Esperantists in the post-war period concluded that Esperanto could not be congruent with points of view that neglected basic human rights. Additionally, resuming Zamenhof’s point, the neutrality of Esperanto is not an absence of outlook, but a certain outlook that accentuates specific forms of openness, inclusion and equitability.

From these claims of neutrality – presented here through a focus on linguistic aspects, power relations, internationality, openness, and political engagement – it is easy to understand why EDE engages with neutrality in controversial ways. As a political party and a wing of the neutral Esperanto movement, EDE simultaneously supports the conceptions of neutrality associated with Esperanto and, to some extent, threatens them by turning them into a political agenda, as we will examine in the next section.

5. Challenging neutralities

As shown above, the neutrality of Esperanto can be called into question in many ways by its European origins and features, which are occasionally seen as compromising, above all, Esperanto’s internationality. Adding to this, if one of the goals of EDE is to advance the use and the adoption of Esperanto in the educational systems of European countries and within the scope of the EU political institutions, the prospective success of this party would convert Esperanto into an even more European, as well as Eurocentric, endeavour – this time, officially. Besides, this advancement of Esperanto would boost this languages’ speech community in the European continent, and its speakers from other countries would become a smaller minority in this international speech community, proportionately speaking. In this sense, one could argue that EDE’s actions may put Esperanto’s internationality on the spot.

Additionally, as I presented, one of the stronger arguments for Esperanto is based on the way it threatens language power relations and challenges the compulsory requirement of learning the dominant languages. Its adoption by the EU would entail that politicians and diplomats, as well as other citizens, would be strongly encouraged to learn it, and translators and interpreters would be required to do so, due to the nature of their jobs. The adoption of this language would add a more commodity-like character to Esperanto: a perfect command of it would become an element for the establishment of hierarchies among its speakers and would become central for applying for certain jobs, whereby the voluntary character of this language would make room for it being occasionally compulsory, which could insert this language in a more imperialist, powerful relation.

10

EDE’s actions also emphasise the neutrality of Esperanto in terms of openness and inclusion, showing that the EU, like Esperanto, should welcome and embrace the diversity that constitutes Europe as a multicultural assemblage of nations and states. However, by advancing Esperanto specifically within the EU borders, this party also subjects such inclusion to specific circumstances: its agenda prescribes the support of Esperanto among persons and peoples within the EU, leaving aside – although not refusing – those who are beyond its borders. As underlined by Stef Jansen (2009), every openness entails some closures. In this case, stimulating openness among EU residents through Esperanto would reinforce Esperanto’s Europeanness to the extent that the adoption of this language in a certain bounded area could be used to strengthen specific politico-geographical and language borders – which lead this party’s actions to be occasionally scrutinised, especially by non-European Esperanto speakers and supporters.

This party political way of advancing Esperanto also builds upon a long-standing debate among Esperantists on promoting the language de sube or de supre, from below or from above. The former, bottom-up approach, envisages that Esperanto would progressively gain the support of individuals who would use it in practice, regularly, to establish international contact networks and to exchange ideas beyond national and language borders and, as a consequence, both speakers and non-speakers of Esperanto would notice its value and applicability. In this way, the promotion and transmission of the language would happen throughout time, from person to person and in small groups. On the other hand, the latter, top-down approach, advocates that Esperanto should be officially supported and adopted by a supranational or international body – such as the UN, Unesco10 or the EU – and the backing of such respected and prestigious institutions would increase this language’s visibility, validity and respectability.

EDE promotes the latter approach, defending the recognition and adoption of Esperanto by the EU and, as every top-down approach, it involves a hierarchical relationship that could risk the relatively powerless character of Esperanto, turning this optional language a requirement for some and adding an important diplomatic and commercial, job market-oriented savour to it. This expected change in the profile of the Esperantists was also commented by Van Parijs: “Would their [Esperantists’] language retain its flavour and their community retain its warmth once appropriated by capitalists and bureaucrats?” (2011: 46).

The most striking tension between Esperanto’s and EDE’s neutralities, however, arises when it comes to activism and political engagement. From the perspective whereby neutrality is an outlook in its own right, promoting the language and supporting human rights, language rights and language equality are actions that may still take place within the framework of Esperanto’s neutrality. However, leaving aside the Esperanto community for a while and following the conceptions held by the EU political bodies, a full-fledged political party is expected not to be impartial and to convey a political agenda. By delineating a political component of neutrality that relates to impartiality and to a neutral activism regarding nearly every political stance that goes beyond language issues, therefore, Esperanto draws a thin line

10 It is important to notice that attempts to gather support to Esperanto within the UN and Unesco have been taking place since 1923, with a lobby for Esperanto at the League of Nations (Forster 1982: 169-186, 242-247).

11

that EDE is always in the vicinity of crossing. From what follows, the tensions emerging from this are manifested both by prospective voters, who would aspire this party to be as political as any other, and by the party members, who question to what extent such ideological and political neutrality conveyed as impartiality is feasible and desirable.

As later stated by Jacques, back to the email exchange on EDE signing the petition claiming the EU to take action against climate change:

My personal opinion is that we should spare our energy by limiting as much as we can the internal debates about the broadening of our programme. If something is worth supporting in the view of the vast majority, then EDE should support it, even if it doesn’t relate to Esperanto. If something triggers an internal debate, it’s better not to insist and focus on less contentious issues. About the proposal in the beginning of this thread, the real question is: does someone oppose that we sign this petition? – rather than “does it relate to Esperanto?”.

Broadening the scope of the party only to the extent that it would contemplate, apart from Esperanto, also consensual issues, was the solution presented by Jacques – which, in turn, did not reach a consensus.

In another email exchange, in late June 2018, Pascal raised again the issue of EDE’s goals, being directly opposed by Gilbert, who brought another concept to the neutrality debate: that of de-politicisation.

The main thing about EDE – and I’ve been defending it whenever I can, since its early days, before the old, sceptic Esperantists – is that it enables those who were interested in Esperanto but couldn’t find a place in the traditional associative structures to invest themselves in EDE to work for Esperanto with a political motivation. And it worked well, our campaigns with propaganda and leaflets during the political campaigns brought Esperanto out of the anonymity. And you want to de-politicise EDE, which means, taking away from those who came their reasons to stay [in the party].

Following from this, and from concerns shared by many members of EDE on how a party without a broader political agenda can be taken seriously, some understandings of neutrality can be occasionally presented as a feature that prevents the party’s ideal functioning and compromises its prospects of success. In this vein, to what extent can one talk about success in this specific case? If Esperanto has not been adopted by the EU, would it mean EDE has failed so far? A debate on successes and failures leads us to another set of issues, involving also a broader perspective that goes beyond those held internally by the party’s members.

6. On managing outcomes of the party’s actions

Thus far, EDE participated in the elections for the European Parliament three times, in 2004, 2009, and 2014. It launched its list of candidates in France in these three suffrages, but the same does not hold true to its German branch, which did not succeed in obtaining the minimum number of signatures to launch its candidates in these three occasions. In any case, this party’s success in having its candidates elected is contestable: any of its candidates has

12

ever been elected, and it has counted on a limited support from the voters. In France, according to the statistical data made available by France-politique.fr11, the 7 candidate lists released by EDE in the 2004 European elections received 25,067 votes, representing 0,15% of the expressed votes, EDE being in the 23 rd position in the ranking of 41 French parties running for the European Parliament, according to the votes received.

In the following election, in 2009, EDE France had more visibility, after a more intense campaign on television, radio and digital media, launching 8 candidate lists and receiving 28,945 votes, 0,17% of the expressed votes in France, being the 16 th party among a total of 36 in terms of votes received. In 2014, the percentage of expressed votes received by EDE was the same: 0,17%. The total number of votes and their position in the ranking, however, saw a modest improvement: 33,115, EDE being in the 21st position among 45 parties.

This quantitative data shows that this party witnesses a moderate increase in popularity, receiving more votes in each election. Despite being among the small political parties that do not have their candidates elected, it managed to occupy a better position at each election compared to the other parties. Nonetheless, the information that stands out here is: first, EDE seems to have secured a position of stability, consolidating itself in the French party political scenario; and second, the position it secured is far from being among the parties that are strong enough to have their candidates elected. These two controversial conclusions bring us to a debate, often held by EDE members, on how to assess the outcomes of the party’s actions in terms of successes and failures.

Social scientists consider several criteria when assessing the outcomes of social movements, political parties and pressure groups of any kind. One of them, also seen as crucial by some members of EDE, refers to the biographical importance of the party’s actions – and since one of the main goals of EDE is to raise awareness of multilingualism and language inequality in the EU, achieving visibility to these issues is already seen as a success.

Doug McAdam (1999) explores how social activism may provoke long-term biographical impacts on movements’ participants. Building upon McAdam’s study, if we consider how participating in EDE has provoked changes in its member’s lives and in their political perspectives, as well as in those from the general public who come across their actions and vote for them, we can see that part of the change envisaged by the party is already taking place. In a conversation with Nicole, a core member of EDE, during my fieldwork in Paris, she highlighted how coming across this party made her think about language policies and political activism for the first time in her life:

In 2009, I was walking in the street and someone gave me a leaflet about EDE. I took it, put it in my pocket and didn’t care about it. There were elections for the European Parliament that year. Then, I decided to take a look at that sheet when I arrived back home, and I came across Esperanto for the first time. I thought it was a good idea, to have a common and equitable language for the EU. But I didn’t think much about that by then. In 2012, I decided I wanted to learn something new. Should I learn to dance? Should I try a new sport? Should I learn a new language? Then, those ideas about Esperanto came back to my mind, and I decided I would learn Esperanto. Then, I took a course at Espéranto France [an Esperanto association

11 This website contains a comprehensive database on the French and on the European elections.

13

headquartered in Paris]. In sum, I came across Esperanto because of EDE, and I also became a member of the party when I started learning the language. I had never been a member of any political party before that.

Nicole illustrates the accomplishment of EDE in provoking a biographical impact in its supporters: she first heard about Esperanto through EDE’s leaflet distribution, thanks to which she decided to learn the language and to get involved with party politics for the first time. It is also worth noticing that she started her activism as a member of the party, and later, in the 2014 EU elections, she ran as a candidate, heading EDE’s candidate list in the French department of Île-de-France, where Paris is located.

Nevertheless, not everyone within EDE sees these personal-level achievements as a success for the party. Back to the debate on neutrality and on the creation (or not) of a broader political programme, the members’ perspectives on the party’s attainment are, again, divided. In September 2016, at the office of Espéranto France, when talking about the functioning of EDE with Pascal – who was involved in the previously narrated mailing list discussion – he expressed his concerns on it:

I’m not very happy with the party. I’m a member of EDE to support the promotion of Esperanto, but I think that recently there are a lot of people in the party who cares more about politics than about Esperanto. In the beginning, the idea was to use the elections to the European Parliament to talk about Esperanto, to raise awareness of its existence through the electoral propaganda. And as we are a political party, we accepted since the beginning the idea of launching candidates. But we knew we have no chances to win an election; we are aware that we may never win. We just want to make use of this space created by the European Union to talk about Esperanto on the TV, in the political campaigns, etc. And the central project of EDE was to promote Esperanto; that’s what the members of the party share, that’s why we got together. But there are people in the party nowadays who want to make politics, who want to propose other political platforms in order to try and be really elected. I don’t understand it, because we are supposed to support Esperanto, but these people have been more interested and involved with politics than with Esperanto lately; and I deeply regret it.

In Pascal’s point of view, the party’s success does not depend on having their candidates elected, but on promoting Esperanto, on using political campaigns as large-scale propaganda for the language. In this vein, EDE’s shifting focus from Esperanto to politics may compromise its accomplishments.

One month after this conversation, three members of EDE presented the party, in Esperanto, for Esperantists, in a meeting of Espéranto France. When asked by someone in the audience if they foresaw real conditions to win an election, Nicole said:

Maybe not. The idea behind the party is to take the European elections as an opportunity to talk about Esperanto, to raise awareness about the language problems in the EU and to show people that Esperanto stands as a possible solution to it. But we don’t really think we can elect a politician. We want to show that, as a political party, we are quite powerful and there are people who would vote for candidates that are in favour of Esperanto. Then, we use this argument (about political power and number of votes) to convince politicians and to persuade other politicians to support Esperanto –if they see that people would vote for a candidate in favour of Esperanto, maybe some of them would be more willing to support it as well.

14

In what follows, if EDE is seen as a pressure group that happen to launch candidates, but whose main functioning is based on using the EU political campaigns as a platform to promote Esperanto, then this party can be regarded as fulfilling its goals. Still, as underlined by Pascal, there are also members who see EDE’s success as depending on their candidates being elected. As explained by Nicole later in the same presentation at Espéranto France: “We’ve been discussing if we should continue the party or put an end to it. [Someone from the audience asked: To end? Why?] Because we never elected anyone. For some people within EDE, it means we failed, and not everyone is in favour of continuing the party”.

Those members who share this feeling of failure are also brought to it by the instability in the party’s membership. After Nicole’s presentation of the party, some questions followed, and to one of them, about membership, Julien, also from EDE, said: “The number of members varies according to the distance to the elections: in electoral years, like in 2014, our membership grows substantially, and when there’s no elections, people simply forget or give up paying their annual membership fee and our membership decreases again”. Hence, when political parties are not under the spotlight, Esperanto supporters in France tend to turn their attention from EDE to other things – associations, social movements, other language or politics-related activity – which creates an unsteady membership in this party in such a way that makes it difficult for them to continue their actions in non-electoral years.

This fluctuation, however, is not a feature exclusive to EDE, but a trait that, to a greater or to a lesser degree, also affects – and characterises – other political parties and social movements. As studied by Sam Marullo and David Meyer (2004) on anti-war movements in the United States, political opportunities are critical for movement mobilisation: peace movements are most likely to mobilise effectively and extensively on the verge of a war, when mobilisation tends to be considered more relevant and powerful, having more chances of influencing the political scenario. In contrast, in times of quiescence, anti-war movements lose centrality and become almost invisible. Thus, it is expected that moments of war and crisis, as well as important protests (as we can see from the example given by Gelb and Hart 1999: 163) or elections, have more potential to provoke and create reasons for more extensive mobilisation, which are inherently interleaved with moments of quiescence.

Therefore, on the one hand, seen as a wing of the Esperanto movement, EDE is by and large recognised as a successful endeavour, insofar as it mobilises political campaigns and the political structure of the EU to advertise Esperanto and to spread the word about causes linked to multilingualism, language rights and language equity. Likewise, noticing the positive outcomes of the party’s actions in terms of personal impacts, such as in Nicole’s case, makes the party worth it. On the other hand, in terms of being an effective political party, EDE does not seem to be on its way to be successful in the long run, and some of its members regard its unstable membership and the insufficient votes gathered by the party in the previous elections as a reason to question whether they should insist on their agenda or simply wait for the demise of the party. What is worth noticing, above all, is that, after 15 years of EDE’s existence, not having their candidates elected and not managing to convince the European Parliament to adopt Esperanto cannot be seen as an obvious failure, but just as part of the very dynamics of the party and its members’ shifting and varying outlooks towards neutrality, their political agenda, and their expected outcomes.

15

7. Final words, further steps

In 2019, new elections for the European Parliament will take place, in an eventful period of growing debates about common policies on borders and about the series of openness and closures that certain decisions on migration can entail. The European EDE Federation has already announced its participation in the EU elections, collecting signatures to launch their electoral lists under the title “Esperanto, equitable common language for Europe” [Annexe 1]. One of their biggest assets this time is the discussions around Brexit: the EU legislation sets out that the official and working languages of the EU are those that are notified to be official by each member state. If the United Kingdom – the only member state that put English forward in the EU as its first official language12 – is about to leave, it has been discussed that, according to the EU legislation, English could not remain as one of the EU working languages (Goulard 2016, Ó Caollaí 2016). Since, in practice, most international communication in the EU political bodies is carried out in English, something has to be done either to exclude English or to amend the EU legislation to stick with English. Many members of EDE – as well as other Esperantists – see this political scenario as an opportunity to give visibility to the unequal communication relations among European citizens and politicians and to present Esperanto as their proposed solution to it.

Nonetheless, in comparison with more consolidated political parties – whose agendas address issues related to labour conditions, economy, the provision of public services, health, education, and public policies – the main causes supported by EDE may not be seen as obvious by most voters. As hinted by Peter Forster (1982: 6-8), the support to a social movement emerges from a situation of strain to which a given cause is presented as a prospective solution13. When it comes to Esperanto, however, the situation of strain that this language project aims to address is not seen by many as a pressing issue. Hence, EDE has to take a step back while facing a long road ahead: before advancing Esperanto, this party has to show that this language is a solution to a problem but, before that, to convince Europeans that the language issue is a pressing one, closely connected to other kinds of discrimination and inequality, so as they can then present Esperanto and this party’s actions as solutions to these issues.

In this sense, most of the voters who regard EDE as a minor party do not see how Esperanto and language rights can speak to them, and see language policies in the EU as far from their everyday realities when compared to more concrete matters such as unemployment, crime, or labour instability. As EDE’s programme is mostly concentrated on Esperanto, its core challenge is to give visibility to the issues this party addresses, so as the

12 Other English-speaking countries, like Malta and the Republic of Ireland, notified Maltese and Irish, respectively, as their first languages, rather than English. Malta joined the EU in 2004 and Maltese became a full-fledged oficial language of the EU after a three-year transitional period (Council of the European Union 2004). In the case of the Republic of Ireland, it joined the EU in 1973, but Irish only became an official language of the union in 2007, being the transitional period extended until 2022 due to difficulties to find translators to it (Council of the European Union 2015).13Garvía (2015: 23-24) also talks about this when commenting on the creation of Volapük, saying that Volapük was not foreseen as solution for a language problem, but instead, it was a solution looking for a problem to address.

16

solution it conveys can speak to its prospective voters. Not tackling other social problems and failing to show the burdens and rewards of the EU’s multilingualism may lead EDE to be occasionally ridiculed by those who do not see the cause it defends as relevant, which would risk their attempt to use Brexit as a focus for their political strategy in the 2019 elections.

A direct consequence of it is that this scenario produces a tension between different kinds of sense of urgency among the members of the party. While they endeavour to see Esperanto as an urgent cause in terms of immediacy – as something that must be advanced now, that is gaining momentum and that may be close to influencing European language policies – they often face voters who despise their actions and do not see a real potential in Esperanto, occasionally labelling them as weirdos (Forster 1982: 233-249, 359-372) and leading them to reconsider such sense of urgency as a fear of failure, whereby the party’s efforts become focused on making Esperanto been taken seriously.

Back to the previous discussion, the imperative of neutrality – in certain of its senses or, in some cases, in many senses – imposes limits to the range of EDE’s political programme, appealing to those who are concerned about language policies and who attribute some value to Esperanto, but pushing away those who see it as a very much limited programme for a “real party” – as defined in the debate in the mailing list. On the one hand, EDE’s proposed neutrality in terms of openness allows this party to welcome everyone who is interested in Esperanto, irrespective of their political perspectives, to the extent that EDE is presented neither as left- nor as right-wing nor as centre. On the other hand, a certain valorisation of impartiality restricts the party’s scope of action, as it discourages the establishment of a broader agenda. By the same token, these conflicting definitions of neutrality drive the conceptions held by members of EDE on the successes and failures of the party: although it may have failed so far to have their candidates elected, it has enjoyed a relative success in giving visibility to the cause they support by raising awareness of language policies in the EU, as well as by recruiting people like Nicole, whose contact with Esperanto provided a life-changing experience regarding political activism. In the long run, their top-down tactics to the promotion of Esperanto ends up revealing more fruitful on ground level, becoming more effective as a bottom-up approach.

In sum, to explore the burdens and rewards of this attempt to establish a neutral political party entails considering the outcomes of the activism of members of EDE. Even though EDE may not be close to reaching its stated goals of advancing the teaching of Esperanto at EU schools or the adoption of Esperanto by European political bodies, EDE has been addressing successfully more attainable goals, such as using a political structure to promote a cause. Despite being a minority party in the EU elections, it has become a wing of the Esperanto movement not to be neglected, securing its place in the political scenario.

Annexe

Announcement of EDE’s participation in the 2019 EU elections, published in French in the French Esperanto magazine Espéranto-Info.

17

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to both Federico Gobbo, who provided me an opportunity to go further in this research on EDE and neutrality and, especially, to Sabine Fiedler, who encouraged me to turn this material into a more developed study. Also, I would like to thank Manuela Burghelea, for the encouragement, and Stef Jansen, for the comments on the first draft of this article.

18

About the author

Guilherme Fians (Department of Social Anthropology, Arthur Lewis Building, Oxford Road M13 9PL Manchester; guilherme.fians@manchester.ac.uk), Teaching Assistant and PhD Student in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester, where he conducts his research focused on how Esperanto speakers and supporters, mostly in France, engage with Esperanto, as well as with other political causes and social movements.

References

Council of the European Union. 2004. Council Regulation (EC) No 930/2004 of 1 May 2004 on temporary derogation measures relating to the drafting in Maltese of the acts of the institutions of the European Union. Available online at <<https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32004R0930>> Accessed 30 July 2018.

Council of the European Union. 2015. Council Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2015/2264 of 3 December 2015 extending and phasing out the temporary derogation measures from Regulation No 1 of 15 April 1958 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community and Regulation No 1 of 15 April 1958 determining the languages to be used by the European Atomic Energy Community introduced by Regulation (EC) No 920/2005. Available online at <<https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32015R2264>> Accessed 29 July 2018.

Dietterle, Joh (Ed). 1929. Originala Verkaro de L. L. Zamenhof. Leipzig: Ferdinand Hirt & Sohn.

EDE. 2018. EDE et les elections européenes. Espéranto-Info 132, July-August 2018.

European Commission. Memo: Frequently asked questions on languages in Europe. Brussels, 26 September 2013. Available online at: <<http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-825_en.htm>> Accessed 23 July 2018.

Eŭropo Demokratio Esperanto: Nia Programo. Available online at: <<http://www.e-d-e.org/-Nia-programo->> Accessed 10 July 2018.

Fiedler, Sabine. 2012. The Esperanto Denaskulo: The status of the native Speaker of Esperanto within and beyond the Planned Language Community. Language Problems & Language Planning 36:1: 69-84.

Fians, Guilherme. 2018. La Kosmopolito kaj la Aliulo: Historiaj konsideroj pri diferenco kaj diverseco laŭ la vidpunkto de esperantistoj. [Chapter in a book to be released during the Universala Kongreso in Lisbon. I’ll have the details of this reference before the publication of this article].

Forster, Peter G. 1982. The Esperanto Movement. Contributions to the Sociology of Language. The Hague: Mouton.

19

France Politique, le site d'information sur la vie politique française. Realisé par Laurent de Boissieu. Available online at: <<http://www.france-politique.fr/elections-europeennes.htm>> Accessed 11 July 2018.

Garvía, Roberto. 2015. Esperanto and Its Rivals: The Struggle for an International Language. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Gelb, Joyce; and Vivien Hart. 1999. Feminist Politics in a Hostile Environment: Obstacles and opportunities. In: Giugni, Marco; Doug McAdam and Charles Tilly (Eds). How Social Movements Matter. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Giugni, Marco. 1999. How Social Movements Matter: Past research, present problems, future developments. In: Giugni, Marco; Doug McAdam and Charles Tilly (Eds). How Social Movements Matter. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Gobbo, Federico. 2017. Beyond the Nation-State? The Ideology of the Esperanto Movement between Neutralism and Multilingualism. Social Inclusion 5:4, 38-47.

Goulard, Hortense. English will not be an official EU language after Brexit, says senior MEP. Politico Europe, 27 June 2016. Available online at: <<https://www.politico.eu/article/english-will-not-be-an-official-eu-language-after-brexit-senior-mep/>> Accessed 25 July 2018.

Grin, François. 2005. L'enseignement des langues étrangères comme politique publique. Rapport établi à la demande du Haut Conseil de l’Évaluation de l’École. Paris: Haut Conseil de l’Évaluation de l’École. Also available online at: <<http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/var/storage/rapports-publics/054000678.pdf>>. Accessed 12 May 2017.

Heller, Monica. 2017. Dr.Esperanto, or Anthropology as Alternative Worlds. American Anthropologist 119:1, 12-22.

Jansen, Stef. 2009. Cosmopolitan openings and closures in post-Yugoslav antinationalism. In: Nowicka, Magdalena; Rovisco, Maria (Eds). Cosmopolitanism in practice. Farnham: Ashgate.

LaPalombara, Joseph; and Jeffrey Anderson. 1992. Political parties. In: Hawkesworth, Mary; and Maurice Kogan (Eds). Encyclopedia of Government and Politics. Volume 1. London and New York: Routledge.

Lins, Ulrich. 2016. Dangerous Language: Esperanto under Hitler and Stalin. First Part. London: Palgrave Macmillan

Lins, Ulrich. 2017. Dangerous Language: Esperanto and the Decline of Stalinism. Second Part. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Marullo, Sam; Meyer, David S. Antiwar and peace movements. 2004. In: Snow, David A; Soule, Sarah A; Kriesi, Hanspeter (eds). The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. Oxford (UK) and Cambridge (USA): Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

20

McAdam, Doug. 1999. The biographical impact of activism. In: Giugni, Marco; Doug McAdam and Charles Tilly (eds). How Social Movements Matter. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Miner, Ken. 2011. The impossibility of an Esperanto linguistics / La neebleco de priesperantalingvoscienco. InKoj, Interlingvistikaj Kajeroj 2:1, 26-51.

Multilingualism in the European Parliament. Available online at: <<http://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/organisation-and-rules/multilingualism>>. Accessed 17 July 2018.

Ó Caollaí, Éanna. European Commission rejects claims English will not be EU language. The Irish Times, 28 June 2016.

Onfray, Michel. Les deux bouts de la langue. Le Monde, 10 July 2010.

Phillipson, Robert. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. 2007. Existencialism is a Humanism. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Strömbäck, Jesper; Ralph Negrine, David Nicolas Hopmann, Carlos Jalali, Rosa Berganza, Gilg U. H. Seeber, Andra Seceleanu, Jaromir Volek, Boguslawa Dobek-Ostrowska, Juri Mykkänen, Marinella Belluati and Michaela Maier. 2013. Sourcing the News: Comparing Source Use and Media Framing of the 2009 European Parliamentary Elections. Journal of Political Marketing 12:1, 29-52.

Van Parijs, Philippe. 2011. Linguistic justice for Europe and for the world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

21