ELEN GENERAL ASSEMBLY BILBO 2024

ELEN GENERAL ASSEMBLY BILBO 2024, EUSKAL HERRIA, 8-10th November

ELEN is delighted to announce that it will be holding its 2024 General Assembly in the vibrant Basque city of Bilbo hosted by the outstanding Basque language NGO and founding member organisation, Kontseilua. The theme for the 2024 ELEN General Assembly will be, “The importance of public policies in the normalisation of minoritised languages.” We’re looking forward to welcoming expert speakers to what has become the main annual event in Europe for organisations working for the protection and promotion of European minoritised and endangered languages, and featuring Basque experts who will deliver a plenary speech on the successful revitalisation of Basque in Tolosa.

The General Assembly will start on Friday afternoon November 8th at 14.30 with the new “Research and Activism” section featuring the latest relevant language-orientated research from the Basque Country and elsewhere, as well as our success with the new COST Action network on Language Plurality in European media. The session is open to ELEN members and invited guests.

The Saturday (Nov 9th) session is more NGO-orientated and features presentations on successful public policies and language recovery in the Basque Country, the new Welsh Government report on areas of higher density linguistic significance. In the afternoon the event features a presentation from the EU Commission DG Education and Culture on EU funding for language projects as well as a workshop with Basque MEPs on how to work effectively with the EU institutions.

We’ll also be following up on our very successful conference in Barcelona on strengthening language rights, and hearing about our success with the Horizon project application on Fostering Linguistic Capital in Europe (Fosterlang, led by Univ. of Warsaw) as well as the new COST Action Plurilangmedia led by ECMI.

Saturday afternoon also features a series of workshops for ELEN members. We’re looking forward to a workshop with NGOs on the impact of over-tourism and 2nd homes on our languages. Parallel workshops will feature discussion on next steps from the new working group on strategic litigation as well as a workshop on developing ELEN Youth with a presentation from the successful HIGA young language activists project. Saturday afternoon is also open to invited guests.

The timings are below:

FRIDAY November 8th
14.30 Research and Activism (Open to Members and Invited Guests)
Presentations and workshops
17.30 Close
19.00 Civic Reception
20.00 Dinner

SATURDAY November 9th
8.45 Accreditation opens.
9.05 Opening speeches (ELEN, Basque Government, MPs, MEPs, Bilbao Mayor)
9.30-12.30 Plenary Speech Presentations and Panels (Open to Members and Invited Guests).
– The importance of public policies in the normalisation of minoritised languages
– Successful language recovery for the Basque language in Tolosa.
12.30 ELEN Business (Members Only).
13.30 LUNCH
14.30 Afternoon presentations, resolutions, workshops (with MEPs and the EU Commission), new members.
– EU funding for language projects, a guide for NGOs
– Workshop with MEPs on working with the EU institutions
– Workshop with NGOs on the impact of over-tourism and second homes on our languages.
– Workshop on strategic litigation for NGOs
– Workshop for ELEN Youth
– Resolutions
– New Members
– Special Items
17.30 GA Closure
19.30 Reception, Dinner and Party.

SUNDAY November 10th
10.00 Visit to the Fine Arts Museum.

Delegates depart.

General Assembly Hotel: Hotel Carlton, 2 Federico Moyua Plaza, Bilbo.
General Assembly Venue: Itsas Maritime Museum, 1 Ramon de la Sota Kaia, Bilbo.

Basque TV, EiTB, will be broadcasting the whole event live.