Let's make the best of the Maltese language in EU

For all those of us who fought really hard, alongside the Maltese government, during accession negotiations to ensure that the Maltese language would be an official language of the EU, the end result was a real explosion of joy.

It had not been an easy job to convince the EU authorities of the necessity to have the Maltese language as an official one. Various arguments were brought up against such decision.

The first one was "size": "How can you expect to have Maltese as an official language with a population of less than 400,000" was quite a popular refrain. "The Basques, the Catalans, the Bretons are millions and millions. Yet, their native tongue is not an official language of the EU"! Not a bad argument, when you come to think of it.

The second argument was "money": "Do you know how many millions of euros a year it will cost the European taxpayer to finance the translation of all documents into the Maltese language? And how many other millions it will cost on interpreting to and from Maltese? And all this for a population of less than 400,000", went the second refrain! Of course, even this was not such a bad argument.

The third and final argument was that relating to "comparison" with other countries. "Come on, Arnold", I would be constantly reminded, "What would the Luxembourg people say if Maltese became an official language of the EU, when Letzteburger (the Luxembourg language) is not an official language... and Luxembourg is a founding member of the EU? And what about Gaelic? Ireland is a much bigger country than Malta. If they can make do with English, then why can't you Maltese too?" The reasoning was not too illogical here either.

But then came the answers. Was size to determine that equal EU members should be treated differently? With that line of reasoning, therefore, the Finnish or Austrians had to forfeit a number of acquired rights, because Finland and Austria too are small countries! And, if the measure of everything were to be money, why should Greek or Portuguese or Dutch be official languages, considering that these countries are midgets when compared to England, France, Italy... not to speak of Germany! Such counter arguments started making the first breaches.

But what eventually clinched the deal was a mixture of "legality", "linguistic history" and the comparative "present state of affairs". For a language to qualify as an official EU language, it had to be considered a fully living language.

What is the state of the Irish language today? Gaelic is a written language. But only 20 per cent of the Irish know how to speak it. Therefore, Irish is not considered to be a living language. And what about Letzteburger? All Luxembourg citizens speak their language. But when it comes to the written language, Luxembourg laws are written only in French! And this disqualifies Letzteburger from being considered a fully living language.

So, why did Maltese make it? Simple: All Maltese speak and write the Maltese language (let us not enter into the nitty gritty concerning the levels!) and Maltese is a written language, with all laws being written in Maltese.

This is what clinched the deal... and the EU adopted our language, the only national language of Arabic origin in Europe, as one of the official languages of Europe. Sincere compliments had to go to the Malta government negotiating team for achieving such a feat.

From May 1 this year, our language, spoken by 400,000 people, is on a par with languages such as German, Italian, English, French, German, Spanish and others, spoken by scores of millions. Indeed, in the European parliament corridors, I have become the subject of amicable envy and wrath from my Basque, Catalan, Breton, etc. colleagues, whose languages - despite being spoken by millions - are not recognised as official EU languages.

Yet, after all this effort to get Maltese accepted, we now risk losing it all because of the inertia of our authorities during the past 13 out of 14 years! We knew we wanted to enter the EU, but the government never prepared the necessary structures in order to form qualified translators and interpreters from and into the Maltese language. The university course only started a few months ago, in October 2003, because of the bad planning and lack of foresight of our government.

Because of this lack of planning by Maltese governments in the last 13 years or so, the current visit to Malta by Neil Kinnock, European Commission Vice-President and Commissioner responsible for Administrative Reform, will include, among its top priorities, the issue of recruitment of Maltese officials and linguists to the EU institutions!

Well, it is clear that we simply cannot go on like this. We risk entering the EU without any Maltese interpreters in the European parliament as from May 1, when Malta joins the EU. Now we are even risking not even being able to provide one Maltese teacher to teach the language to interested foreigners.

In fact, for the forthcoming intensive summer language courses being organised by the EU institutions for its employees, all official languages of the EU are being advertised. However, the teaching of the Maltese language to EU employees is at risk since this depends on finding a teacher.

The Professional Training Services of the European institutions in Brussels is jointly organising intensive summer courses for interested EU employees.

Maltese is the only language being advertised, subject to the availability of a Maltese teacher! I can assure you that this note is being sent to the 20,000 employees of the EU institutions. And, noting my language as the only one subject to the retrieval of some Maltese teacher... makes my blood curdle.

This situation cannot go on. With regard to linguistic matters, our country is becoming the laughing stock of the EU. Our government has to wake up, shrug off its complacent and fatalistic attitude, be pro-active and help to ensure that Maltese qualified teachers can take up not only the summer 2004 post offered by the Language School working for the EU Commission in Brussels but also all the possible other teaching jobs (not many) that will crop up in the future.

We must all understand, our government in particular, that the issue at stake is not only linguistic but is mainly political. A country that does not respect the language of its people will, in turn, end up not being respected at all by other countries. All Maltese should fight to protect the basic dignity of our country and people through the multiple opportunities offered to us by EU membership.

A government that is not capable of taking up these opportunities is simply a government not worthy of its name.