Grands colloques - Les langues régionales et la construction de l'État en Europe - 274

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language of the domestic procedure. The reference reaches the Court of
Justice in the language of the procedure of the referring Court. It is then
translated into all the official languages and sent to all Member State legal
services, to give Member State governments the chance to present observations, and it is published in the Official Journal in all language versions.
The French language will be used by the Court to prepare all its documents and all documents presented to the Court related to the case will
be translated into French for the Court to work on. The Hearing, if there
is one, will be held in the language of the procedure of the referring court,
and in any case there will be interpretation into French. Each intervening
Member State will use one of their official languages, and the observations
will be interpreted into French for the Court. The Advocate General will
present the Opinion in the language of his or her choice and it will first
be translated into French and then into all other official languages. The
Court's judgment will be drafted in French, and when finally agreed will
be translated into the language of procedure of the referring court and later
into all official languages for publication.
This system ensures that all the parties before the Court can use
their language and the Court can work in French. The language system
operates smoothly and few problems arise. Access to justice in one's (official) language is thus secured and trust is largely secured. We have only
mentioned the multilingual operation of the Court; but the European
Parliament, the Commission, the Council, the European Central Bank,
the Committees, the Agencies all operate under the multilingual regime and
in the case of the European Parliament this is taken to a very large scale.
A recognition of this right is included in the so-called citizenship regime21.
Of course, the budgetary provisions necessary to ensure the system works
are enormous. From a technical point of view multilingualism is a major
trait of the EU.
And yet, in spite of all the resources and the legal framework to ensure
the co-official status of all the twenty-three languages in all the institutions, multilingualism is not central to EU identity. It should be, given its
importance and centrality for European identity, but it is not. The EU has
adopted a low profile on its multilingual make up. This statement may seem
surprising, and one would need to instantiate it first, and then explain the
reasons for this apparent lack of saliency, but this would require an article
of its own. We shall here follow a simple strategy: to check the foundational
21. TfEU: 20,2,d enshrines the right to petition the European Parliament, to apply to the
European Ombudsman, and to address the institutions and advisory bodies of the Union
in any of the Treaty languages and to obtain a reply in the same language. Likewise, TfEU:
24 recognises citizens the right to write to any of the institutions, bodies, offices or agencies
in one of the official languages and have an answer in the same language.

Grands colloques - Les langues régionales et la construction de l'État en Europe

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