Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-11-Speech-2-062"
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"en.20050111.5.2-062"2
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"Mr President, as a Lithuanian I ought to be proud that my country's parliament was the first to ratify the European Constitution. However, the majority of Lithuania's citizens have not seen, read or discussed it. It was not even debated by Lithuania's Parliament. On the other hand I am sure that for the most part this Constitution is in keeping with the interests of my nation and state.
However, I would like to take this opportunity to draw your attention to Part 1 Article 8 of the Constitution, which lays down that the word euro – the name of the common currency of the European Union – must be used in the same way in all European Union languages. It goes against the fundamental principle of the Constitution and that of the creation of the European Union itself, that is, respect for national languages and cultures. According to this article, which is based on Council Regulation No 974/98 of 1998, there would be an unprecedented intervention in the grammatical systems shaped over thousands of years and in semantic relations expressed not in word order, not in words with one form, but in the declension of words, of the languages of the seven new countries of the European Union, among them the Lithuanian language. The Regulation mentioned, announced six years ago, before the new countries were admitted to the European Union, does not allow the word euro to be declined. Such a ban contradicts Article 314 of the European Community Treaty and Article 53 of the Treaty on European Union on the true equality of the European Union's official languages, as well as European Community Treaty Article 5 on subsidisation and Article 151 on the limits of cultural policies.
I asked the Commission and the Council why these circumstances have not been taken into consideration and four months later Mr Almunia, the European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, replied that the non-declinable word euro is used in the Constitution because this was laid down in the Council Regulation. Back to square one, and disrespect for national languages remained. If such a ban remains in the Constitution, then in the Lithuanian version and all legislation we will have an abundance of not only ungrammatical but absurd statements. I hope that Parliament will take these arguments into account. Thank you for your attention."@en1
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