Language Diversity: a Challenge for Europe

Alex Riemersma gave a brief outline on the influences of the European language policies on the development of Frisian. He mentioned the growth of Frisian medium pre-school provisions as well as trilingual schooling as well as the contribution of the European Year of Languages 2001 to the translation of Frisian poem Bitter-Sweet into 82 languages and to the cultural successes of the song contest Liet International. The conference was organised by the European Free Alliance group in the European Parliament of which the Corsican MEP François Alfonsi was the first responsible member to the conference.