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ELEMENTS EUROPA EUROPA’S APORIAS 145
Should the Germans and Europeans language pairs)! In the restricted club of EU representatives, such assembly
have some piece of advice on current is uncertain. In the actual continental space, education and mobility alone
conflict scenes to give the rest of the can allow one to hope for gradual acculturation of all citizens to part of that
world, particularly to those duellists European linguistic wealth, at the cost of a deliberate linguistic policy. Then
vividly fascinated by one another […], what should be said about non-EU languages?
it could only be the following: act
like us, do not get overly interested in The Europa programme prepared thirty or so interpretation booths for
one another! And when you pick up the main conference halls. The apparatus is set up so as to let interpreters
your correspondents abroad for your have a panoramic view overlooking the entire space where exchanges are
newspapers, who will inform you taking place. Elliptic rooms are surrounded by crowns of small booths,
about a neighbouring country, make coiling round them and forming a functional membrane between the
sure you only choose journalists who inside and the outside. Those booths are connected to a central control
know how to bore their readers to monitoring the technical efficiency of the entire transmission and
death! That is the only way those simultaneous translation apparatus, including towards external listening
who have fortunately been kept apart rooms at the delegation’s disposal.
can ever live together in peace and
friendship. The conception of Europa as a whole seems to be a metaphor for
Peter SLOTERDIJK. that multilingual space, so exemplary of a public culture dedicated to the
most intense interactions yet restive to unification more than any other.
Theorie der Nachkriegszeiten (2008). Multilingualism is the ultimate form of European compromise, for which
reason it ought to be one of the main directions of our educational systems.
It still is a long way away and Peter Sloterdijk, a philosopher fully adhering to
cross-border exchanges, used to deplore how drastically learning German
in France regressed in France as did learning French in Germany. This is true,
by simultaneously assessing the setting up of an immune system made up
of mutual ignorance and indifference likely to jam a return to hostile and
excited rivalries, so typical of the European past. Without Britain, will English
finally impose itself as the common language? The Europa programme
ostensibly turns its back on that hypothesis. Languages surround the walls
where politicians consult each other; they even form the walls keeping
leaders from the outside world, the latter’s conversations thus being
protected behind the glass membrane enveloping the rooms. The whole
soundproof secret of the heart of the lantern seems destined to protect this
proliferation of languages, like the cornerstone of nations’ agreements or
disagreements.
Insisting even further is necessary. Europa’s architecture organises
supporting services for the delegations’ and the secretariat’s work (the two
wings of the Residence Palace hosting offices and many office rooms) round
a splendid yet sealed turret. The latter abounds in comfort and security but,
apart from the monument’s illumination feats, it sets the pyre on fire. Such is
the limit imposed upon the actively shared European culture for it to flourish:
the institutional and political debate, armed with its troublesome translation
apparatus, is still only a reserved debate. There will come a time when real
