Frequently Asked Questions

* What is it ? I’ve never heard of it before.

* What are your aims ?

* Esperanto is not a political entity and we should not be mixing Esperanto with politics.

* Which associations support you, and which do not ??

* Why not be a part of another party ? By creating another party, you are competing against the others.

* We don’t have enough money to be a political party.

* What’s your take on the European constitution ??

* A political party has to have a complete manifesto with proposals on every matter...

* So why include the word "Esperanto" ? Was this party started only by Esperantists ?

* EDE is a French thing.

* This is a European thing, whilst Esperanto is a wordwide thing. This could come at a cost to Esperanto.

* What is it ? I’ve never heard about it before.

 EDE is a political movement created in 2003 with the aim of democratising the European Union via, amongst other means, the use of Esperanto.

* What are your aims ?

The goal for the European elections is that EDE present candidates in all EU countries. This will show to the citizens that :

 we are capable of organising ourselves across boundaries and that we are a truly international party. EDE is not an ordinary national party : Most national parties transform themselves into a European party only for the purpose of holding Europe-wide elections, but are still essentially a national party with perhaps alliances in other countries. EDE is the only party truly dedicated to and originating from Europe as a whole.

 we are not utopians ; we propose a concrete solution which works, but not promises.

 we, thanks to our not being limited to borders, are capable of initiating speech and discussion amongst the civilians, every EU citizen, not only about national issues, but also about truly European subjects, for example, proposing uniformity amongst the voting procedures. Ordinary parties are national parties, which only discuss national issues during the election campaign : The French vote based on French problems, the Poles vote based on Polish points of view, Swedes vote to the benefit of Sweden, and so on. The citizens, by means of national parties, discuss and debate about national issues ... occasionally adding the word "Europe", but the subjects and arguments stay the same, irrespective of whether the subject is a national issue, or a European one.

No, EDE is not at all like that : it’s a fully European party which thinks Europe-wide, and which stands for not promises but concrete ideas for helping Europe progress further along the way to greater democracy, justice, and peace.

* Esperanto is not a political entity and we should not be mixing Esperanto with politics..

 Politics is administration of the affairs of state, is it not ? So, the very proposal of Esperanto is of itself a political thing, since its goal is to improve the lives of people (especially international relations).

* Which associations support you, and which do not ?

 The experience of the 2004 French campaign shows that EDE gained support from people from every type of association. Similarly, it was clear that both new and older Esperantists supported it. On the other hand, there were many associations and groups that said that they did not support and would not vote for EDE, including fellow Esperantists. Note that there were several non-Esperanto-speakers who *did* say that they would vote for the party !

* Why not be a part of another party ? By creating another party, you are competing against the others..

 EDE is not in competition. It proposes concrete ideas which the other parties don’t, or which they put aside.

 For more than one hundred years, politicians from every party have been making promises without delivering on them. If they don’t wish to speak about ways of advancing democracy, then EDE ought to. EDE should thus stimulate the other parties into starting a serious debate about language politics ; it should push them into declaring their own positions on the language problem, instead of continually pushing it to one side. One should think, for example, about ecology ; until comparitively recently, scarcely anybody spoke about ecology. The ecologists formed a party and became candidates for election. Because of this, the people could more readily hear and talk about ecological issues. Relatively many people voted for them, and this caused the "big" parties to incorporate these ecological issues in their own manifestos. Indeed, do any parties now not feature ecology in their manifestos ? Esperanto and the other ideas for furtherig democracy which EDE proposes could follow the same path. When the "big" parties realise that EDE’s proposals are liked by the voters, they’ll incorporate them into their own manifestos. Of course, one should bear in mind that simple inclusion of the subjects into their manifestos doesn’t actually mean that the parties would act on them.

* We don’t have enough money to be a political party.

 Not necessarily. National laws differ about the creation of a political party and candidacy at the ballot box. In France in 2004, one only needed to present a candidate. In Germany, one must collect signatures to be recognised as a candidate. Maybe in some countries, the conditions are even more favourable to candidature. Because of this, even several years after, one ought to investigate the issue as early as is possible.

* What’s your take on the European constitution ?

 EDE considers itself a party for the whole of Europe. However, in 2005 it had only existed for a year and so only had members in France and Germany. Because of this, EDE chose to remain neutral on the draft treaty of the European constitution, although having alerted people that it proposed no answer to the language problem and, indeed, didn’t even mention it.

* A political party has to have a complete manifesto with proposals on every matter ; (health, education, immigration, and so on.) You are a single-issue party, proposing only the use of Esperanto.

 EDE contains members with the most diverse range of opinions, both from the traditional right and left. The common factor among them is the language Esperanto. In any case, is it ever possible to compile a manifesto that please evreybody ?

 As far as other issues are concerned, the other parties have already discussed and proposed since the beginning. If EDE doesn’t have anything of interest to add to the debate, it won’t throw hot-air promises into the arena. On the contrary, the other parties maintain a silence about the language problem (or, at best, only repeat the traditional, resultless promises). By virtue of its mere existence, EDE could encourage the other parties to engage in debate about the language problem, and have them state their position on the subject. Maybe it is worth considering the following quotation, translated from about the "white vote" : "Our goal is not to gain power, but to represent the ’white vote’. It’s about candidature by the people, for democracy." Without making any proposals, or even running a true campaign, the "whites" aim only merely to inform and act to raise awarenessof the "white vote".

 EDE should be a new type of party which doesn’t make hot-air-laden promises, but proposes real, attainable ideas. Possibly some problems are so difficult that EDE will be unable to provide the right answers or worthwhile solutions, so it is better to do nothing than make empty promises. Self-evidently, EDE shoild declare an open mind on these subjects, and be ready to explore all serious proposals.

* So why include the word "Esperanto" ?

Was this party started only by Esperantists ? Is Esperanto your only proposal ?

 Esperanto is the only thing that every party member of EDE has in common. Indeed, thanks to the common language Esperanto, we were all able to communicate with one another effectively and reach the same conclusions that democracy in the EU doesn’t function very well, and that, amongst other things, Esperanto is a serious and effective way of further progressing things, so that every citizen of the EU can explain himself to the same degree, and so that there isn’t a set of "privileged" Europeans (because of their native language) and second-tier Europeans on the other side, in order that Europeans feel much more strongly that they’re part of the same group of countries.

* EDE is a French thing.

 No. It was born in France, but EDE is a Europe-wide political party in which every national section is placed at the same level.

* This is a European thing, whilst Esperanto is a wordwide thing. This could come at a cost to Esperanto.

 It’s a single step. If we in the EU acknowledge Esperanto, this will encourage others to do the same.