Nives Mazur Kumrić, Ivan Zeko-Pivač: LANGUAGE AND POWER – AN INSIGHT INTO THE REGULATORY FRAMEWORK AND PRACTICE OF LANGUAGE ARRANGEMENTS OF THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

Nives Mazur Kumrić, Ivan Zeko-Pivač: LANGUAGE AND POWER – AN INSIGHT INTO THE REGULATORY FRAMEWORK AND PRACTICE OF LANGUAGE ARRANGEMENTS OF THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

Scientific paper

Nives Mazur Kumrić, Permanent Representation of the Republic of Croatia to the European Union, Brussels, Belgium / Faculty of Law and Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Liège, Belgium

Ivan Zeko-Pivač, Permanent Representation of the Republic of Croatia to the European Union, Brussels, Belgium

DOI: https://doi.org/10.59014/XYFK4735

Paper in PDF

Keywords:

Council of the European Union, European Law, International Law, language and power

Abstract

The intrinsic nature of language-power relationships has long attracted wide scholarly
attention, particularly from the 1980s onwards. In addition to being assigned a classic
communication function, language is also seen as a vital tool for demonstrating
and exercising political power, that is, a collective power of ethnopolitical communities.
This paper looks into the specificities of the language policies of the Council
of the European Union both codified and customary, which demonstrate power
relations between the Member States of the European Union. The research is based
on the legal-dogmatic method as it assesses current positive law, doctrine, concepts,
practice, and scholarly literature addressing elements of language arrangements pertinent
to the Council. Special emphasis is put on discrepancies between codified rules
calling for equality of all EU languages and nurturing linguistic diversity, on the
one hand, and daily practices endorsing linguistic imperialism, on the other hand.
The paper examines the evolution of language narratives in the founding treaties of
the European Union, Council Regulation No. 1/58 determining the languages to be
used by the European Union, the Council’s Rules of Procedure, and other relevant
documents, and compares them with European realities on the ground. Although
the regulatory framework governing the work of the Council is more or less clear
regarding the equality of the Member States and their official languages, the power
gap and language disbalance remain an ever-present element of the EU environment.

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