EUDO (European Union Observatory on Democracy, www.eudo.eu, an independent and interdisciplinary academic organisation based at the top-ranked European University Institute in Florence, www.eui.eu ) has launched "The 2009 Elections to the European Parliament", an eBook, edited by by Wojciech Gagatek, with the results of the collective effort of almost 50 political scientists from all over Europe.

How much 'second-order' were the European Parliament Elections 2009? Does this election mark continuity with the 2004 election? How can the gains and losses of various parties be explained? What will the direct consequences of this election be for national politics? The explanations for these and other phenomena can be found in this new academic production.

This highly original book analyses political decentralization and fiscal federalism in Canada and Germany, both traditional federal countries, and in Spain, a unitarian country engaged in the last two decades in a process of decentralization. The three key issues required for a well designed financing system are analysed in depth herein, namely: tax assignment, equalization grants (i.e. redistribution of money from the wealthy regions or the national government to poorer regions) and the role of regional government in the administration of taxes. "Fiscal Federalism and Political Decentralization" will be of particular interest to academics and researchers of economics, public economics, public finance and public choice. It will also appeal to politicians and policy makers as well as organizations and agencies related to the economy and fiscal federalism.

This volume contains a selection of papers based on presentations given at the international conference entitled "The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages: Achievements and Challenges", co-organised by the Council of Europe, the Government of Spain, the Government of the Basque Country and the University of the Basque Country, which was held in Bilbao (Spain) on 20 and 21 April 2009.

This work looks at the future prospects of the charter in the light of the experience gained over the first decade of the charter's existence. It is evident that governments bear the primary responsibility in preparing for ratification and in applying the charter, and this is illustrated by case studies for some states parties to the charter. However, regional and local authorities also play a very important role in relation to the charter as they are confronted on a daily basis with the use and protection of minority languages. 

The website of Stateless Nations and minority peoples in Europe
(national, cultural and linguistic minorities, native peoples, ethnic groups)

The online journal Nationalia has been launched by CIEMEN, the fruit of over thirty years of experience in the field of stateless nations. One of the original aims of the organization was to open up possibilities of information-sharing to peoples and nations that were marginalized or saw their identity and existence threatened. Then as now, the proponents of CIEMEN were aware that ignorance generates fear, rejection and violence and that providing reliable information about these peoples and nations would be a sure-fire way of overcoming public ignorance about the social reality of stateless nations.

The World Direcory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples (WDMIP) grew out of Minority Rights Group's encyclopaedic World Directory of Minorities, first published in 1990 and updated and expanded in 1997. This World Directory has been restructured into database format, updated and expanded, and the entire text is now available free of charge for the use of all those throughout the world with an interest in any aspect of minorities and indigenous peoples, their rights, their historical, political or geographical context.

Documentation centre with information in Italian on endangered peoples. Aside from their website the Centre publishes the e-magazine la causa dei popoli

The Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning conducts ressearch in the field of lesser used languages and its website gathers information on: Research projects on multilingualism and Minority languages in Europe.

CMC members publish often studies, papers, rapports, speeches, manifestos and other data of their own. Find them here:

Centre Maurits Coppieters:

Images of Minority Languages - Briefing of the conference held in Brussels 1st June 2010

Transylvanian monitor:

A statement - once and now. Published in 1993 by Bishop Tokes

Human language has changed in the age of globalization: no longer tied to stable and resident communities, it moves across the globe, and it changes in the process. The world has become a complex 'web' of villages, towns, neighbourhoods and settlements connected by material and symbolic ties in often unpredictable ways.This phenomenon requires us to revise our understanding of linguistic communication. In The Sociolinguistics of Globalization Jan Blommaert constructs a theory of changing language in a changing society, reconsidering locality, repertoires, competence, history and sociolinguistic inequality.