Language Rights in the Treaty of Lisbon

Abstract

This chapter studies the Treaty of Lisbon which contains legal language defining the linguistic obligations of the European Union and the language rights of its citizens. The Treaty fails to address the rights of minority language speakers in the European Union, including, most perilously, the rights of minorities who are seeking to secede from their own countries (e.g., Catalonia and Scotland) and minorities who have used violence in their quest for political rights (e.g., the Basque Country and Corsica). It calls for a more pluralistic approach to language legislation and for de jure language rights for speakers of minority languages in the European Union, especially for speakers of official minority languages, such as Catalan, Basque, and Galician in Spain, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh in the UK, and others. Future revisions of the Treaty of Lisbon may need to pay heed to earlier pronouncements and bodies created by the European Union to support minority languages, such as the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages and the European Charter for Regional and Minority languages.