RUBRIKO

This is the 2003 version of the program of the Federation, the current version you can see in Esperanto.

INTRODUCTION

The essential history of the European construction is, for our movement, stressing the creation of a truly European and international democracy, with the happiness of the united peoples and citizens its goal, and to light a way to a more peaceful world.

Fair treatment in all other aspects of European politics depends on the quality and effectiveness of this democracy.
Europe as it stands today is considered imperfect by a majority of its citizens ; at times, people wail that it’s intolerable.
We recognise that the public’s complaint about a democratic-deficiency is fair. From this stems a large number of difficulties for Europe’s citizens.
Finally, this democratic-deficiency hinders the creation of a European identity, as much for the citizens themselves as for the rest of the world.

Our programme « to spread democracy throughout Europe » of course is born in acknowledgment of this, and is the key to a true formative act targetting European democracy and its effectiveness.
On the political landscape, we defend the idea that democracy is absolutely necessary for us to be able to bear proudly our European citizenship.
We defend the idea that this citizenship cannot be built on the remnants of our national and regional identities.
We must be the custodians of subsidiarity, multiculturalism, and multilingualism. Europe must neither introduce hegemony nor impose submission to its citizens.

There follows our movement’s programme for today’s Europe, covering aims and means. It doesn’t pretend to respond to every political point. This is intentional, because of the primacy of the following criteria for there to be any semblance of democracy. We take pride in knowing that if all of these points are realised, then the democratic process will have formed a fair political path for Europe’s citizens.

1. THE FIRST ESSENTIAL ELEMENT OF DEMOCRACY IS THE RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH

It’s not enough just to proclaim it.
To be a credible deputy in regards to this engagement, it is necessary to propose precise means by which to ensure that this right is utilised by every European citizen without any discrimination, be it by nationality, language, wealth, and so forth.
The originality that separates us from others who write about democratic construction at the head of their programmes is that we declare the necessity of using of a neutral language as the working language in the parliamentary commissions, and as a bridge language for unhindered communication between all citizens of Europe. We acknowledge as inefficent the current method of using only the dominant languages, which only leads to the dominance of English. We want a Europe of citizens, free from hegemony.

We are pragmatists, and wish to clearly spell out our proposal :
Everyone should be free to continue to develop his own tongue, without fear of economic, political, or cultural obstacles.
Everyone should acquire without cost or special effort the international and neutral language Esperanto.
Finally, everyone should have the freedom and possibility to learn as many languages as he desires, without obligation or compulsion ; in other words, for his own pleasure and desire to enrich his culture.

The importance of these linguistic requisites for the construction of a European democracy can be illustrated thus :
 The commissions are theoretically bi- or trilingual, but practically, under the pretence of "efficiency", they have become unilingual, to the profit of only those who speak English.
This situation understandably undermines the efficiency and democracy of the debates, and imposes the final decisions to the influence of a single languistic, cultural, and political group.
We should point out, that the country that has this language as its mother tongue and this culture as its native, is that which most often opposes the construction of Europe. It is also worth underlining that this dominance in debates and dissimination of information offers a breach to the extremely powerful USA, which has never been shy in hiding its displeasure in seeing a European union become a more effective competitor in the political and economic domains.

 As far as efficiency goes, the use of English places burden on European economic development.
We are able to show how the costs imposed are more than any efficiency that may be brought, to which are added a plethora of injustices.
We can assert that the investment that both the education system and the business world must make in non-English-speaking areas represents an economic handicap.
It is about a "language tax", paid by the majority of European citizens to the profit of those who do not have to pay : British and American firms.

 Employment in the scientific, commercial, political, and parliamentary domains occurs through language preference, as the oft mentioned "English mother tongue" in European (and even national) job advertisements attests.
These announcements are worthy of castigation because they are in opposition to the European convention of human rights.

Well here’s a surprise, dear Europeans ; there are other solutions and we are here to prevent the damage that the actions of some will inflict on future generations !

In reality, reading ability in technical English is only absolutely necessary in such fields as engineering and exploring. This being the case, one could easily reduce by thee quarters the number of hours spent teaching English at school, and really ought to, bearing in mind that this teaching in no way guarantees (in fact, the opposite) the building of European democracy.

For more that 120 years, an international language of communication has existed ; Esperanto has already proved itself effective in international exchanges, as it has also in daily life for some of its speakers and for various specialist faculties.

This politically neutral language that can be learned easily in relatively short time (also with modern teaching aids) is a guarantee for mutual respect between citizens with different mother tongues, in relation to their freedom of expression and general interest.

Because the learning of Esperanto requires less investment (ten times less time) a new linguistic politics would become easily affordable with immediate profits, if the overinvestment in English, which is inefficent for the majority of European citizens, is left behind.
Using Esperanto would make it possible to allocate investment in learning and production to truly cultural aims.
For a small investment in Esperanto, all can profitably benefit, also in the fields of culture and politics. These qualities were recognised by UNESCO in 1956. Once it adopted Esperanto, Europe could be an example of successful integration, which actively the diversity of its varieties of culture and language. Europe, showing that its motor and ideologies aren’t hegemonic, will draw sympathy and free-willed co-operation from other countries.
So, this true European independence, enshrined in its cultural and linguistic reality, will mean so much more than all the other declarations that its people judge inefficient.
The linguistic politics that we propose by "Europe, Democracy, Esperanto" symbolises greater justice and equality ; it heralds respect for the diversity and maintaining all of Europe’s cultural identities ; it promises a tenfold increase in economic efficiency, generated with little cost. It is, via learning Esperanto, a very good introduction to effective learning of other languages. Finally, it is the arrival of the citizens’ Europe, marked with solidarity and efficiency.

2. DEMOCRACY GUARANTEES AND DISTRIBUTES THE MEANS FOR PEACEFUL AND CONSTRUCTIVE DEBATE

We want to be the initiators of efforts to cement European solidarity, of exchange, of protection of nature, culture, and language. We propose the means to guarantee and widen the scope of Europe’s freedoms, and to ensure balance amongst the powere, and so forth.

 For guarantees about the quality of information.
The information industry has become the first-ranked industry in the world, generally under the control of financial powers. It is necessary to guarantee the independence of information at the same time as protecting journalists and preventing untruthful manipulation in the press, with all the terrible consequences that this can bring.
The principle is to obligate the owners of massmedia to give the opposing side of any debate also, in ways that parliamentary commissions will define.
Other dispositions such as compliance commissions are still to be perfected. Indeed, we believe that the attempt to raise the quality of information through the legal obligation to publish opposing sides of the argument will generate criticism and transparency, both necessary tools of democracy.

 To guarantee participation at social and political debate, and availability of knowledge and the effective attainment of educated status as a fundamental right. We will oblige all internet service providers to make available free of charge good-quality access to a public, European server, which must offer the following services also free of charge to every citizen :

• a secure mailbox with an electionic signature legally witnessed and guaranteed, with the means for encrytion or authenticity checks according to the user’s wishes
• an ability to participate in debates and public voting, according to the legalities
• total availability of public knowledge sources effectively organised, and unlimited availability of teaching materials that have been published up to PhD level. These should be published in every living language as a minimum, up to the level of master’s degree, and Esperanto for everything, without excluding the option use other languages to the highest level.

 We consider that the freedom and independence of the press and good faith demand that this same independence applies to the tools that the press uses ; in other words, to ’information technology’. In this spirit, we support the movement for open-source software and, more precisely, the current battle against patenting for such work as books, mathematical formulae, and computer programmes.

 For a democracy in which the people partake, thanks to the procedure of the citizens’ right to call for referendums.
Because of the common realisation that even democratically elected people are at times incapable of reaching decisions in time or accept new ideas, in spite of urgency, we consider it a good thing, that citizens be able to call for a referendum, on condition that the required number of requesters as required by law be reached, and the constituent criteria of subsidiarity be respected.
Thus, for problems of recognised magnitude whether regional, national, European, a call for referendum by the people whom are affected will put make possible effective, direct, participatory deomocracy.

 For a Europe of citizens, without any discrimination, neither by wealth, nor geography, nor anything else.
European citizenship must be a real, practical thing for every citizen. Particularly important is the possibility to stay in regions that differ by language and culture from the home one, and which should be proposed to all young people, irrespective of length of their studies.
The other ways of uncovering Europe’s diversity should be distributed, taking into account economic weaknesses. Examples include partnering.
We support implicitly the distribution of exchanges of learners, teachers, civil servants, and any other economic agent, whatever they should wish.
We require equality between civilians to realise European citizenship.
We will raise awareness of the principle of applying quotas to the composition of office staff in order to prevent any kind of discrimination, be it linguistic, cultural, and distance-based.
These dispositions are necessary to create feelings of solidarity and citizenship amongst Europeans

3. DEMOCRACY ALSO GUARANTEES THE RIGHTS OF MINORITIES

 For the protection of minority languages and cultures.
The continued existence of minority groups requires protective measures which aim to maintain the density necessary to keep alive a language, a culture, a people.
We want the European Union’s linguistic and cultural landscape to be researched and a report about its status to be released.
This report will act as a reference for a political defence of our linguistic and cultural inheritance.
It will alert us to the realities of minorities, respecting the principle of subsidiarity.
In our opinions, such a policy of protecting language and culture is as important as other measures of development and effinciency in the European Union.
This requirement needs to be added to the fundamental legal texts which underpin the Union.
Such policy will offer the dispositions and tools useful for all protection of multiculturalism and multilingualism in the European Union. By these dispositions, we aim to guarantee an active respect of minorities, conservation of cultural richness and diversity, assurance of respect one’s roots, and a right to live ever closer other linguistic and cultural roots.
We underline our attachment to the concept of cultural or linguistic terrain, reinforced by our attachment to the application of the principle of sunsidiarity.
Thus a European identity will form, not by the removal of each European’s roots, but by the magnitude of the values of tolerance and solidarity.

 The definition of democracy for us means that any and every minority must receive the same freedom of speech and means to use it, such that the minority’s viewpoint can be easily noticed by the whole citizenship of Europe, without expense or undue stress, just as is the case for majority viewpoints. Notwithstanding, this doesn’t apply to propaganda about declarations, messages, and threats which are against the principles of human rights.

4. RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

The general field of democratic politics is in defining citizenship and human rights. For us, they are enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights and European citizens shall be our guides. The principle text and best known is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), and we believe that no other texts should propose a casting-away of any point of this declaration, and also that it’s priciples are above and so unimpeachable by subsequent declarations. Of course, this starting point recognises texts that aim to grant further rights, for example, to children.