A Citizens‘ Initiative by the European Esperanto Union

Recommend singing the European Anthem in Esperanto

In accordance with the right granted to citizens by the Treaty of Lisbon, EEU (the European Esperanto Union) yesterday submitted a proposal for registration to the European Commission:

“The EU recommends that the European Anthem be sung using specially adapted lyrics in the neutral pan-European language, Esperanto, when citizens wish to express their common European identity.”

The objectives of the proposed citizens' initiative:

1) to help strengthen a common European identity in harmony with national, regional and other identities, thereby making the EU more effective for citizens;

2) to increase citizen participation in European integration;

3) to help achieve (1) and (2) by providing lyrics in a neutral, pan-European language for citizens to sing together;

4) to ensure parity of esteem for all European languages;

5) to reconfirm and rebalance the two elements of the EU’s motto of “united in diversity”, to ensure that diversity is not emphasized at the expense of unity.

The supporting committee comprises seven members, drawn from seven different EU member countries, and includes the Nobel prizewinner, Professor Reinhard Selten (Germany) and the well-known politician Marco Pannella (Italy).

The lyrics of the Esperanto version of the traditional European Anthem can be heard here, from which translations of the lyrics into all 23 official languages of the EU, and many regional, minority, and world languages (Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Hindi, Bengali, Indonesian) may be downloaded. EEU welcomes translations into other languages.

The European Commission now has two months to decide whether to register the proposal. If the Commission agrees that the proposal helps implement the EU Treaties more effectively, and that it is within its competence under the Treaties, EEU will have 12 months to collect the 1 million signatures in the 27 EU countries to enable the European Commission to consider the recommendation. It should be noted that it will be possible to sign up to the proposal online.

For further information, contact:

sean.oriain@web.de (0032496-597763) jozef.reinvart@gmail.com

You may read the draft legal act here.

A Citizens‘ Initiative by the European Esperanto Union

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