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Slick Idiot

Slick Idiot is a German electronic and industrial band.

History
Slick Idiot was formed by former KMFDM members Günter Schulz and En Esch, following the 1999 breakup of KMFDM. Before taking on the name Slick Idiot, Esch and Schulz contributed a cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Terrible Lie" to Cleopatra Records' Covered in Nails 2: A Tribute to Nine Inch Nails. After releasing DickNity for purchase online, Slick Idiot, with core live members Mel Fuher and drummer/programmer Michael J. Carrasquillo, embarked on the "High Life for Low Lives" US tour in 2002. Cleopatra Records then re-released DickNity with a bonus remix by Christoph Schneider of Rammstein. In late 2003, Esch and Schulz joined as members of Pigface for the "United II" tour. In October 2004, Screwtinized was released online via their website and garnered rave reviews. En Esch toured again with Pigface on the "Free for All" US tour in 2005, while Schulz devoted his time to forming the side project SCHULZ with vocalist Jeff Borden. The band co-headlined, along with Hanzel und Gretyl, the first Gothicfest at the Odeum Expo Center in Illinois. In 2006, Slick Idiot completed a full US tour called the "xSCREWciating Tour", with More Machine Than Man. The tour saw the addition of live members Gregg Ziemba on drums and Victoria Levy on vocals.

As a tribute to the 2008 UEFA European Football Championship, which took place in Austria and Switzerland, and to the Austrian capital Vienna, Slick Idiot recorded a version of a famous traditional Austrian song, "Wien, Du Stadt meiner Träume", written by Rudolf Sieczynski. The song was released on 12 May 2008 as a digital download only.

Slick Idiot toured the US in late 2009, performing almost 50 shows in two months. The band released the album S U C K S E S S on 4 September 2009.

On 29 May 2010, Slick Idiot began the "Sucksess 2010 USA Tour" in Phoenix, Arizona, and continued the tour around the US. Accompanying Esch and Schulz were drummer Ziemba and singer Erica Dilanjian. Singer Mona Mur appeared as a featured guest to perform songs from 120 Tage – The Fine Art of Beauty and Violence, a collaboration album between Mur and Esch. Mur accompanied the band in 2010 and 2011 on two full Canada tours, and again in 2012 on the "Slick Idiot vs Mona Mur & En Esch Classick Tour 2012" with Dan Simoes (of Alvalanker) on guitar and Ethan Moseley (of Promonium Jesters) on drums. Mur again performed the Slick Idiot female vocal parts along with songs from the Mur and Esch collaboration.

Current line-up

 * En Esch – vocals, percussion, guitars, programming (1999–present)
 * Günter Schulz – guitars, programming (1999–present)
 * Erica Dilanjian – vocals (2009–present)

Guest members

 * Michelle Boback – vocals (1999–2004)
 * Trixie Reiss – vocals (2000–2009, 2015–2016)
 * Abby Travis – vocals (2004)
 * Kasey James – vocals (2004)
 * Krisa Duiton – vocals (2004)
 * Charlie Zahn – saxophone (2004)
 * Victor Con Fuse – trombone (2004)
 * Rick Van Stonah – trumpet (2004)
 * Chuck "Chains" Lenihan – guitars (2009)
 * Hope Nicholls – vocals (2009)

Former members

 * Michael J. Carrasquillo – live drums and keyboards (2002)
 * Melanie Fuher – live vocals (2002)
 * Gregg Ziemba – drums (2006–2010)
 * Victoria Levy – vocals (2004–2009)
 * Mark Durante – guitars (2009, 2011)
 * Raymond Watts – vocals (2011, 2016)
 * Mona Mur – vocals (2009–2012, 2016)
 * Paul Wood – live drums (2011)
 * Dan Simoes – live guitars (2012–2015)
 * Ethan Moseley – live drums (2012–2016)
 * Eric Gottesman – live keyboards (2016)
 * Luke Dangler – live guitars (2016)
 * Galen Waling – live drums (2016)
 * Joshua Lutrell – live keyboards (2017)
 * Wulf Del Reno – live drums (2017)

Singles

 * Wien – The Single (2008) – online single

title: Slick Idiot


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Talk:Tom Waddell

Untitled
Is this the Tom Waddell that the transgender clinic is named after? -- Kimiko 21:26, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Copyvio problem
On April 3 2008, the copyright article Building a Gay Sports Legacy: The Story of Tom Waddell was pasted into this article (diff). I've rolled the article back to the last version that includes no copyvio content. --Muchness (talk) 18:35, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Tom Waddell


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Isolated danger mark

An Isolated Danger Mark, as defined by the International Association of Lighthouse Authorities, is a sea mark used in maritime pilotage to indicate a hazard to shipping such as a partially submerged rock.

It is recognisable by its black and red bands and top-mark of two black balls.

Its distinctive sequence of flashing white light consists of 2 quick flashes in intervals of either 5 or 10 seconds.

authors: იაკობ მახარაძე

title: Isolated danger mark


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Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf

The Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf or Ronne–Filchner Ice Shelf is an Antarctic ice shelf bordering the Weddell Sea.

Description
The seaward side of the Filchner–Ronne ice shelf is divided into Eastern (Filchner) -79°N, -40°W and the larger Western (Ronne) -78.5°N, -61°W sections by Berkner Island. The whole ice shelf covers some 430,000 km2, making it the second largest ice shelf in Antarctica (and on Earth), after the Ross Ice Shelf. It grows perpetually due to a flow of inland ice sheets. From time to time, when the shearing stresses exceed the strength of the ice, cracks form and large parts of the ice sheet separate from the ice shelf and float off and disperse as icebergs. This is known as calving.

The Ronne ice shelf is the larger and western part of the Filchner–Ronne ice shelf. It is bounded on the west by the base of the Antarctic Peninsula (Graham Land with Zumberge Coast and Orville Coast) and Ellsworth Land. Commander Finn Ronne, USNR, leader of the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition (RARE) in 1947–48, discovered and photographed a strip along the entire northern portion of this ice shelf in two aircraft flights in November and December 1947. He named it the "Lassiter Shelf Ice" and gave the name "Edith Ronne Land" to the land presumed to lie south of it. In 1957–58, the US-IGY party at Ellsworth Station, under now Captain Ronne, determined that the ice shelf was larger than previously charted, that it extends southward to preempt most of "Edith Ronne Land". Inasmuch as Capt. James Lassiter's name has been assigned to a coast of Palmer Land, the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) approved the name Ronne Ice Shelf for this large ice shelf, on the basis of first sighting and exploration of the ice shelf by Ronne and parties under his leadership. The shelf is therefore named for Edith Ronne, the wife of Finn Ronne and RARE Expedition member.

The Filchner ice shelf is the eastern part of the Filchner–Ronne ice shelf. It is bounded on the west by Berkner Island and on the east by Coats Land. The east part of this shelf was discovered in January–February 1912 by the German Antarctic Expedition under Wilhelm Filchner. Filchner named the feature for Kaiser Wilhelm, but the Emperor requested it be named for its discoverer. The shelf is nourished primarily by the Slessor Glacier, the Recovery Glacier, and the Support Force Glacier, all located east of Berkner Island.

In 2021, sponges and other unidentified suspension feeders were reported to have been found growing on a boulder under the western margin of the Filchner ice shelf, close to Berkner Island, at a depth of 1,233 m (872 of which were ice), 260 km from open water.

Disintegration (calving)
In October 1998, the iceberg A-38 broke off the Filchner–Ronne ice shelf. It had an extent of roughly 150 by 50 km and was thus larger than Delaware. It later broke up again into three parts. A similar-sized calving in May 2000 created an iceberg 167 by 32 km in extent, dubbed A-43 – the disintegration of this is thought to have been responsible for the November 2006 sighting of several large icebergs from the coast of the South Island of New Zealand, the first time since 1931 that any icebergs had been observed from the New Zealand mainland. A large group of small icebergs (the largest some 1000 metres in length), were seen off the south-east coast of the island, with one of them drifting close enough to shore to be visible from the hills above the city of Dunedin. If these were indeed the remnants of this calving, then over the course of five and a half years they had travelled slowly north and also east around over half the globe, a journey of some 13,500 km.

From January 12 and January 13, 2010, an area of sea ice larger than the state of Rhode Island, or one-seventh the size of Wales, broke away from the Ronne–Filchner Ice Shelf and shattered into many smaller pieces. The Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites captured this event in this series of photo-like images.

In May 2021, Iceberg A-76 broke off the northwest corner of the shelf. At 4320 km2, it is larger than Majorca, several times larger than Iceberg A-74 which calved in the same year, or approximately 14% the size of Belgium.

The ice of the Filchner–Ronne ice shelf can be as thick as 600 m; the water below is about 1400 m deep at the deepest point.

The international Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf Programme (FRISP) was initiated in 1973 to study the ice shelf.

A study published in Nature in 2012 by scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, and funded by the Ice2Sea initiative, predicts the disappearance of the 450000 km2 vast ice shelf in Antarctica by the end of the century which could – indirectly – add up to 4.4 mm of rise of sea level each year.

title: Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf


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Bézier

Bézier can refer to:

 * Pierre Bézier, French engineer and creator of Bézier curves
 * Bézier curve
 * Bézier triangle
 * Bézier spline (disambiguation)
 * Bézier surface
 * The town of Béziers in France
 * AS Béziers Hérault, a French rugby union team
 * Bézier Games, an American board game publisher

title: Bézier


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Hāngī

Hāngī is a traditional New Zealand Māori method of cooking food using heated rocks buried in a pit oven, called an umu. It is still used for large groups on special occasions, as it allows large quantities of food to be cooked without the need for commercial cooking appliances.

Process
To "lay a hāngī" or "put down a hāngī" involves digging a pit in the ground, heating stones in the pit with a large fire, placing baskets of food on top of the stones, and covering everything with earth for several hours before uncovering (or lifting) the hāngī. Hāngī "experts" have developed and improved methods that have often, like the stones themselves, been handed down for generations.

Common foods cooked in a hāngī are meats such as lamb, pork, chicken and seafood (kaimoana), and vegetables such as potato, kūmara (sweet potato), yams (oca), pumpkin, squash, taro and cabbage.

A hāngī pit is dug to a depth of between 50-100 cm, sufficient to hold the rocks and two stacked baskets of food. Logs, usually mānuka or kānuka, are stacked over the pit with the rocks, commonly andesite or basalt, on top. The logs are lit and is left to burn for 3 to 4 hours, heating the rocks to 600-700 C. Once the fire has burned down, the hot embers and most of the ash is removed. Alternatively, the fire is built separately and the hāngī pit is dug while the fire is burning, with the hot rocks transferred to the pit after heating.

Meanwhile, the food is prepared and placed in wire baskets lined with either puka, banana or cabbage leaves, or aluminium foil. The meat basket is placed in the bottom of the pit, with the vegetable basket placed on top. If seafood is included, it is placed on top of the vegetable basket. Wet sacks or cloth are placed on top of the baskets, and the whole pit is covered with earth. The hāngī takes approximately 2.5 to 4 hours to cook. A person supervises the hāngī while it cooks, covering up any escaping steam with earth.

Once the hāngī is cooked, the earth is carefully removed from the top of the pit, followed by the sacks or cloth. The baskets are lifted out of the pit, and the food taken to the kitchen for carving and serving.

Prior to colonisation and the introduction of metals and wire, food was laid between bark, large leaves and other vegetation. Wire baskets became widely used in the early 19th century, with sacking and cloth replacing leaves and bark as the covering of choice.

In the early 21st century, gas-heated stainless-steel "hāngī machines" are sometimes used to replicate the style of cooking without the need for a wood fire, rocks and a pit.

Early umu-tī
Evidence from early Polynesian settler sites in New Zealand such as Wairau Bar and in coastal Otago Peninsula from about 1280 shows a significant number of large cooking pits or umu which were designed to cook tī kōuka or various other species of Cordyline.

The distinguishing feature of an umu-tī was its large size compared to a normal earth oven. The long, carrot-shaped tap root was cooked in a large, stone-lined pit for between one and two days. The result was a fibrous mass of sweet pulp with a bitter aftertaste. This was a common east Polynesian practice in the Cook Islands and Society Islands, and the remains of large umu have also been found in the Kermadec Islands. Investigation in Otago shows that most of these pits were used only once or twice.

title: Hāngī


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User:Crackshoe

Electrical engineering student, Industrial music fan, audio engineer. Thought to be carbon based, often described by witnesses as being "highly viscious", may be flammable. Nutritional value undetermined.

Current Foci

 * KMFDM - filling out albums (primarily tracklistings. Larry Gilbert seems to have his albums onhand, and fills in the technical credits)
 * Clutch (band) - created entry. continueing through the albums
 * My eventual goal is to fill out every band with at least a 2nd degree connection to KMFDM. this should, as far as i can tell, cover almost evrey single semi-prominent industrial group.
 * P.I.G./Raymond Watts

Boneheaded Mistakes
individually relinking Watts to Watts, Los Angeles, California and Watt, as needed. should figure out how redirects work, so i don't do the stupid manual relink. Of course, Watt was mistakenly linked to Watts, which was linked to Watts, Los Angeles, California, so it was needed anyway.

title: User:Crackshoe


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Languages of the European Union

The European Union (EU) has 24 official languages, of which three – English, French and German – have the higher status of "procedural" languages of the European Commission (whereas the European Parliament accepts all official languages as working languages). Irish previously had the lower status of "treaty language" before being upgraded to an official and working language in 2007. However, a temporary derogation was enforced until 1 January 2022. The three procedural languages are those used in the day-to-day workings of the institutions of the EU. The designation of Irish as a "treaty language" meant that only the treaties of the European Union were translated into Irish, whereas Legal Acts of the European Union adopted under the treaties (like Directives and Regulations) did not have to be. Luxembourgish and Turkish, which have official status in Luxembourg and Cyprus, respectively, are the only two official languages of EU member states that are not official languages of the EU. In 2023, the Spanish government requested that its co-official languages Catalan, Basque, and Galician be added to the official languages of the EU.

The EU asserts that it is in favour of linguistic diversity. This principle is enshrined in the EU Charter of fundamental rights (art. 22) and in the Treaty on European Union (art. 3(3) TEU). In the EU, language policy is the responsibility of member states, and the EU does not have a common language policy; EU institutions play a supporting role in this field, based on the principle of "subsidiarity"; they promote a European dimension in the member states' language policies. The EU encourages all its citizens to be multilingual; specifically, it encourages them to be able to speak two languages in addition to their native language. Though the EU has very limited influence in this area, as the content of educational systems is the responsibility of individual member states, a number of EU funding programmes actively promote language learning and linguistic diversity.

The most widely understood language in the EU is English, which is understood by 44% of all adults, while German is the most widely used mother tongue, spoken by 18%. All 24 official languages of the EU are accepted as working languages, but in practice only three – English, French, and German – are in wide general use, and of these, English   is the most commonly used. French is an official language in all three of the cities that are political centres of the Union: Brussels, Belgium; Strasbourg, France; and Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. Since the exit of the United Kingdom from the EU in 2020, the government of France has encouraged greater use of French as a working language.

Official EU languages
, the official languages of the European Union, as stipulated in the latest amendment of Regulation No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community of 1958, are:

The number of member states exceeds the number of official languages, as several national languages are shared by two or more countries in the EU. Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, and Swedish are all official languages at the national level in multiple countries (see table above). In addition, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Hungarian, Italian, Slovak, and Slovene are official languages in multiple EU countries at the regional level.

Furthermore, not all national languages have been accorded the status of official EU languages. These include Luxembourgish, an official language of Luxembourg since 1984, and Turkish, an official language of Cyprus.

All languages of the EU are also working languages. Documents which a member state or a person subject to the jurisdiction of a member state sends to institutions of the Community may be drafted in any one of the official languages selected by the sender. The reply is drafted in the same language. Regulations and other documents of general application are drafted in the twenty-four official languages. The Official Journal of the European Union is published in the twenty-four official languages.

Documents of major public importance or interest are produced in all official languages, but that accounts for a minority of the institutions′ work. Other documents—e.g., communications with the national authorities, decisions addressed to particular individuals or entities and correspondence—are translated only into the languages needed. For internal purposes the EU institutions are allowed by law to choose their own language arrangements. The European Commission, for example, conducts its internal business in three languages, English, French, and German (sometimes called "procedural languages"), and goes fully multilingual only for public information and communication purposes. The European Parliament, on the other hand, has members who need working documents in their own languages, so its document flow is fully multilingual from the outset. Non-institutional EU bodies are not legally obliged to make language arrangement for all the 24 languages (Kik v. Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market, Case C-361/01, 2003 ECJ I-8283).

The translations are expensive. According to the EU's English-language website, the cost of maintaining the institutions’ policy of multilingualism—i.e., the cost of translation and interpretation—was €1,123 million in 2005, which is 1% of the annual general budget of the EU, or €2.28 per person per year. The EU Parliament has made clear that its member states have autonomy for language education, which by treaty the Union must respect.

Language families
The vast majority of EU languages belong to the Indo-European family: the three dominant subfamilies are the Germanic, Romance, and Slavic. Germanic languages are spoken in central and northern Europe and include Danish, Dutch, English, German, and Swedish. Romance languages are spoken in western and southern European regions; they include French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish. The Slavic languages are to be found in central Europe and the Balkans in southern Europe. They include Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Polish, Slovak, and Slovene. The Baltic languages, Latvian and Lithuanian; the Celtic languages, including Irish; and Greek are also Indo-European.

Outside the Indo-European family, Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian are Uralic languages while Maltese is the only Afroasiatic language with official status in the EU.

Writing systems
Most official EU languages are written in the Latin script. The two exceptions are Greek, which is written in the Greek script, and Bulgarian, which is written in Cyrillic script. With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of the European Union, following the Latin and Greek scripts. The current design of euro banknotes has the word euro written in both the Latin and Greek (Ευρώ) alphabets; the Cyrillic spelling (Eвро) was added to the new Europa series of banknotes started in 2013 (see Linguistic issues concerning the euro).

Maltese
Although Maltese is an official language, the Council set a transitional period of three years from 1 May 2004, during which the institutions were not obliged to draft all acts in Maltese. It was agreed that the council could extend this transitional period by an additional year, but decided not to. All new acts of the institutions were required to be adopted and published in Maltese from 30 April 2007.

Irish
When Ireland joined the EEC (now the EU) in 1973, Irish was accorded "Treaty Language" status. This meant that the founding EU Treaty was restated in Irish. Irish was also listed in that treaty and all subsequent EU treaties as one of the authentic languages of the treaties. As a Treaty Language, Irish was an official procedural language of the European Court of Justice. It was also possible to correspond in written Irish with the EU Institutions.

However, despite being the first official language of Ireland and having been accorded minority-language status in the Northern Ireland region of the United Kingdom, then an EU member state, Irish was not made an official working language of the EU until 1 January 2007. On that date an EU Council Regulation making Irish an official working language of the EU came into effect. This followed a unanimous decision on 13 June 2005 by EU foreign ministers that Irish would be made the 21st official language of the EU. However, a derogation previously stipulated that not all documents have to be translated into Irish as is the case with the other official languages.

The regulation meant that legislation adopted by both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers is translated into Irish, and interpretation from Irish was available at European Parliament plenary sessions and some Council meetings. The cost of translation, interpretation, publication, and legal services involved in making Irish an official EU language was estimated at just under €3.5 million a year. On 3 December 2015, a new regulation passed by the council had set a definitive schedule on the gradual reduction of the derogation of the Irish language. This regulation outlined a schedule of gradual reduction spread across five years starting from 2016. The derogation was ultimately revoked on 1 January 2022, making Irish a fully recognised EU language for the first time in the state's history.

Irish is the only official language of the EU that is not the most widely spoken language in any member state. According to the 2006 Irish census figures, there are 1.66 million people in Ireland with some ability to speak Irish, out of a population of 4.6 million, though only 538,500 use Irish on a daily basis (counting those who use it mainly in the education system) and just over 72,000 use Irish as a daily language outside the education system.

South-Slavic language status
At the time of Croatia's accession to the EU, some diplomats and officials suggested that, rather than accepting the Croatian written standard as an official EU language, the EU should instead adopt a single unified literary form that would encompass several nearly-identical written standards of the same language, historically known as Serbo-Croatian, the official language of Yugoslavia until its disintegration and the division of the language among ethnic lines. In addition to Croatian, this would include the Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin written standards, all of them based in the same spoken dialect of Eastern Herzegovina, with the goal of reducing potential translation and interpretation costs if the other Western Balkan states eventually joined the EU as well. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was cited as an example of an international body that had conducted business in such a unified standard. In negotiations with Croatia, however, it was agreed that the Croatian standard would become a separate official EU language, as none of the other states at issue had yet been admitted to the EU.

Regional, minority and other languages
Some regional or minority languages spoken within the EU do not have official recognition at EU level. Some of them may have some official status within the member state and count many more speakers than some of the lesser-used official languages. The official languages of EU are in bold.

In the list, language varieties classified as dialects of an official language by member countries are not included. However, many of these varieties may be viewed as separate languages: for instance, Scots (the Germanic language descended from Old English, not the Celtic language known as Scottish Gaelic) and several Romance languages spoken in Spain, Portugal, France and Italy, such as Aragonese, Asturian, Mirandese, Lombard, Ligurian, Piedmontese, Venetian, Corsican, Neapolitan and Sicilian.

Languages of France
The French constitution stipulates French as the sole language of France. Since the 2008 modifications, article 75-1 of the Constitution adds that "regional languages form part of the French heritage".

Nevertheless, there exist a number of languages spoken by sizable minorities, such as Breton (a Celtic language), Basque, and several Romance languages such as Occitan, Catalan, Corsican and the various langues d'oïl (other than French), as well as Germanic languages spoken in Alsace-Lorraine (Central Franconian, High Franconian, Luxembourgish, and Alemannic) and French Flanders (Dutch).

These languages enjoy no official status under the French state, and regions are not permitted to bestow any such status themselves.

Languages of Greece
The official language of Greece is Greek, and recognized minority languages are Armenian, Ladino and Turkish. Nevertheless, there are several other languages in Greece, which lack any recognition. These are Albanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian (these last two usually being collectively known as "Vlach"), Romani and the Slavic varieties spoken in the country. Greece has been described as the only European Union member state that sticks to a "linguistic assimilationist ideology".

Languages of Italy
Italy's official language is Italian, although twelve additional languages (namely Albanian, Catalan, German, Greek, Slovene, Croatian, French, Franco-Provençal, Friulian, Ladin, Occitan and Sardinian) have been recognized as minority languages by the 1999 national Framework Law on the Country's historical linguistic minorities, in accordance with the Article 6 of the Italian Constitution. However, many languages other than Italian and the above-mentioned twelve are spoken across the country, most of them being either Gallo-Italic or Italo-Dalmatian, which lack any sort of official recognition and protection.

Languages of Spain
The Spanish governments have sought to give some official status in the EU for the languages of the autonomous communities of Spain, Catalan/Valencian, Galician and Basque. The 667th Council Meeting of the Council of the European Union in Luxembourg on 13 June 2005, decided to authorise limited use at EU level of languages recognised by member states other than the official working languages. The Council granted recognition to "languages other than the languages referred to in Council Regulation No 1/1958 whose status is recognised by the Constitution of a Member State on all or part of its territory or the use of which as a national language is authorised by law." The official use of such languages will be authorised on the basis of an administrative arrangement concluded between the council and the requesting member state.

Although Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician are not nationwide official languages in Spain, as co-official languages in the respective regions—pursuant to Spanish constitution, among other documents—they are eligible to benefit from official use in EU institutions under the terms of 13 June 2005 resolution of the Council of the European Union. The Spanish government has assented to the provisions in respect of these languages.

The status of Catalan, spoken by over 9 million EU citizens (just over 1.8% of the total), has been the subject of particular debate. On 11 December 1990, the use of Catalan was the subject of a European Parliament Resolution (resolution A3-169/90 on languages in the [European] Community and the situation of Catalan).

On 16 November 2005, the President Peter Straub of the Committee of the Regions signed an agreement with the Spanish Ambassador to the EU,, approving the use of Spanish regional languages in an EU institution for the first time in a meeting on that day, with interpretation provided by European Commission interpreters.

On 3 July 2006, the European Parliament's Bureau approved a proposal by the Spanish State to allow citizens to address the European Parliament in Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician, two months after its initial rejection.

On 30 November 2006, the European Ombudsman, Nikiforos Diamandouros, and the Spanish ambassador in the EU, Carlos Bastarreche, signed an agreement in Brussels to allow Spanish citizens to address complaints to the European Ombudsman in Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician, all three co-official languages in Spain. According to the agreement, a translation body, which will be set up and financed by the Spanish government, will be responsible for translating complaints submitted in these languages. In turn, it will translate the Ombudsman's decisions from Spanish into the language of the complainant. Until such a body is established the agreement will not become effective.

Following the 2023 Spanish general election, the PSOE-led Spanish government sent a letter to the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union, asking for Catalan, Basque, and Galician to be added to the current 24 official languages of the EU. This was done in exchange for the support of the Catalan separatist party Junts for Francina Armengol's candidacy for President of the Congress of Deputies. Without such support the PSOE would likely have been unable to form a new government and a second election would have been held in the same year.

Galician in particular, not being itself a European Parliament official language, can be used and is in fact used by some European Parliament constituents as a spoken dialect of Portuguese due to its similarity with this language.

Luxembourgish and Turkish
Luxembourgish (Luxembourg) and Turkish (Cyprus) are the only two national languages that are not official languages of the EU. Neither Luxembourg nor Cyprus have yet used the provision of 13 June 2005 resolution to benefit from use in official EU institutions. On 26 February 2016 it was made public that Cyprus has asked to make Turkish an official EU language, in a “gesture” that could help reunification and improve EU–Turkey relations. Already in 2004, it was planned that Turkish would become an official language if Cyprus reunited. Turkish is also a recognized minority language in two EU member countries (Greece and Romania).

In September 2010, Luxembourg's foreign minister Jean Asselborn declined a request of the Alternative Democratic Reform Party (ADR) to make Luxembourgish an official language of the European Union citing financial reasons and also that German and French being already official languages would be sufficient for the needs of Luxembourg.

Romani
The Romani people, numbering over two million in the EU, speak the Romani language (actually numerous different languages), which is not official in any EU member state or polity, except for being an official minority language of Sweden and Finland. Moreover, Romani mass media and educational institution presences are near-negligible.

Russian
Though not an official language of the European Union, Russian is spoken in all member states that were part of the Soviet Union (and before that the Russian Empire). Russian is the native language of about 1.6 million Baltic Russians residing in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as a sizeable community of about 3.5 million in Germany and as a major immigrant language elsewhere in the EU, e.g. in and around Paris. Russian is also understood by a majority of ethnic Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians born before c. 1980, since, as official language of the Soviet Union, it was a compulsory school subject in those countries that were part of the Soviet Union. To a lesser extent, this legacy also holds true among the older generation in parts of the EU that were formerly part of the Eastern bloc, such as the GDR.

In March 2010 fact-sheets in Russian produced by the EU executive's offices in Latvia were withdrawn, provoking criticism from Plaid Cymru MEP and European Free Alliance group President Jill Evans who called European Commission to continue to provide information in non-official EU languages and commented that "it's disappointing to hear that the EU is bowing to pressure to exclude Russian speakers in the Baltic in this way".

Sami languages
In Finland, the Sami languages Northern Sami (ca. 2,000 speakers), Skolt Sami (400) and Inari Sami (300) have limited local recognition in certain municipalities of Finnish Lapland. Furthermore, legislation specifically concerning the Sami must be translated to these languages. Bilingualism with Finnish is universal, though.

At least five different Sami languages are spoken in Sweden, but "Sami language" (undifferentiated) is recognised as an official minority language in Sweden, and is co-official with Swedish in four municipalities in Norrbotten County (Swedish Lapland). Most of Sami speakers speak Northern Sami (5,000–6,000 speakers), although there are ca. 1,000–2,000 Lule Sami speakers and 600 Southern Sami speakers. Also Ume Sámi and Pite Sámi are spoken in Sweden.

Latin
For millennia, Latin served as a lingua franca for administrative, scholarly, religious, political, and other purposes in parts of the present-day European Union. After Athens and other Greek city-states of the 6th to 4th centuries BC, the first documented political entity historically verifiable in Europe was the Roman Republic, traditionally founded in 509 BC, the successor-state to the Etruscan city-state confederacies. Latin as a lingua franca of Europe was rivalled only by Greek. It is serving as honourable and ceremonial language in some of the oldest European universities in the 21st century, and has operated as the official language of the Roman Catholic Church until today. Latin, along with Greek, was at the core of education in Europe from the schools of rhetoric of the Roman Republic in all of its provinces and territories, through the medieval trivium and quadrivium, through the humanists and the Renaissance, all the way to Newton's Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis (just to name one example of thousands of scientific works written in this language), to the public schools of all European countries, where Latin (along with Greek) was at the core of their curricula. Latin served as the undisputed European lingua franca until the 19th century, when the cultures of vernacular languages and the "national languages" started to gain ground and claim status. Today, several institutions of the European Union use Latin in their logos and domain names instead of listing their names in all the official languages. For example, the European Court of Justice has its website at "curia.europa.eu". The Court of Auditors uses Curia Rationum in its logo. The Council of the European Union has its website at "consilium.europa.eu" and its logo showing Consilium. The European Union itself has a Latin motto: "In varietate concordia". Under the European Company Regulation, companies can be incorporated as Societas Europaea (Latin for "European Company", often shortened to "SE" after the company's own proper name). Latin is one of the languages of IATE (the inter-institutional terminology database of the European Union).

Immigrant languages
A wide variety of languages from other parts of the world are spoken by immigrant communities in EU countries. Turkish (which is also an official language of the EU member Cyprus) is spoken as a first language by an estimated 1% of the population in Belgium and the western part of Germany, and by 1% in the Netherlands. Other widely used migrant languages include Berber languages which are spoken by about 1% of the population of both the Netherlands and Belgium and by many Berber migrants in France, Spain, Italy and Germany. Arabic is spoken in many EU countries mainly in its Maghrebi and Levantine varieties. Maghrebi Arabic is spoken by migrants in France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Levantine Arabic is spoken by migrants in Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark, Austria and Greece. Languages from former Yugoslavia (Serbian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Albanian, etc.) are spoken in many parts of the EU by migrants and refugees who have left the region as a result of the Yugoslav wars and unrest there.

There are large Chinese communities in France, Spain, Italy, and other countries. Old and recent Chinese migrants speak a number of Chinese varieties, in particular Cantonese and other southern Chinese varieties. However, Mandarin is becoming increasingly more prevalent due to the opening of the People's Republic of China.

There are many Russian-speaking immigrants in Germany and France.

Many immigrant communities in the EU have been in place for several generations now, and their members are bilingual, at ease both in the local language and in that of their community.

Sign languages
A wide variety of sign languages are used in the EU, with around 500,000 people using a sign language as their first language. None of these languages are recognised as an official language of an EU member state, with the exception of Ireland passing the Irish Sign Language Act 2017 that granted it official status alongside Irish and English, and only three states (Austria, Finland and Portugal) refer to sign languages in their constitution.

Several NGOs exist which support signers, such as the European Union of the Deaf and the European Sign Language Centre. The European Commission has also supported some initiatives to produce digital technologies that can better support signers, such as Dicta-Sign and SignSpeak.

The sign languages in use in the EU are more difficult to classify into language families than the spoken languages, because of language contact and creolization. Important families include the Swedish, French, and German sign language families.

Vietnamese
Vietnamese is one of the 14 recognized minority languages in the Czech Republic.

Esperanto
Esperanto is a constructed language that is part of the educational system in several member states. In Hungary it is officially recognised by the Ministry of Education as a foreign language; and examinations in Esperanto may be used to meet the requirements of knowledge of foreign languages needed to complete university or high school. Every year, since 2001, between 1000 and 3000 people have passed examinations in Esperanto, making up for a sum of more than 35,000 up to 2016; it is recognised by the Hungarian state. The Hungarian census 2001 found 4575 Esperanto speakers in Hungary (4407 of them learned the language, for 168 of them it is a family or native language); in 2011 it found 8397 Esperanto speakers. In 1990 there were only 2083 Esperanto speakers in Hungary following the census.

Esperanto is not mentioned by the EU Commission as an EU language; the Commission mentions only official, indigenous regional and minority languages as well as languages of immigrants. Following estimates there are approximately 100,000 Europeans sometimes using Esperanto (and several millions having learned Esperanto); the language has several thousand native speakers, some of them of the second or third generation.

The European party Europe – Democracy – Esperanto seeks to establish the planned language as an official second language in the EU in order to make international communication more efficient and fair in economical and philosophical terms. They are based on the conclusions of the Grin Report, which concluded that it would hypothetically allow savings to the EU of €25 billion a year (€54 for every citizen) and have other benefits. However, the EU Parliament has stated clearly that language education is the responsibility of member states.

The European Esperanto Union also promotes Esperanto as the international auxiliary language of Europe.

Knowledge
The five most spoken languages in the EU are English (44%), German (36%), French (30%), Italian (18%) and Spanish (17%). At 20% of the total number of speakers, German is the most widely spoken native language, followed by Italian (15%), French (14%) Polish (9%) and Spanish (9%). The knowledge of foreign languages varies considerably in the specific countries, as the table below shows. The most spoken second or foreign languages in the EU are English, French, German, Spanish, and Russian. In the table, boxes coloured light blue mean that the language is an official language of the country, while the main language spoken in the country is coloured dark blue.

1 This does not refer to the total population of the countries. 2 40% of those who speak French are native speakers, for a total of 85%. 3 Includes about 30% native speakers 4 Includes more than 30% native speakers

56% of EU citizens are able to hold a conversation in a language other than their native language, nine percent higher than reported in 2001 among the 15 member states at the time. 28% are able to hold a conversation in at least two foreign languages, while 44% are only able to speak their native language. Approximately 1 in 5 Europeans can be described as an active language learner (i.e., someone who has recently improved his/her language skills or intends to do so over the following 12 months).

English remains by far the most widely spoken foreign language throughout Europe. A total of 95% of students in the EU study English at secondary level and 38% of EU citizens state that they have sufficient skills in English to have a conversation (excluding citizens of Ireland, an English-speaking country). A total of 28% of Europeans indicate that they know either French (14%) or German (14%), along with their native language. French is most commonly studied and used in southern Europe, especially in Mediterranean countries, in Germany, Portugal, Romania, the Benelux countries and Ireland. German, on the other hand, is commonly studied and used in the Benelux countries, in Scandinavia, and in the newer EU member states. Spanish is most commonly studied in France, Italy, Luxembourg, and Portugal. In 19 out of 29 countries polled, English is the most widely known language apart from the native language, this being particularly the case in Sweden (89%), Malta (88%); the Netherlands (87%); and Denmark (86%). A total of 77% of EU citizens believe that children should learn English. English was considered the number one language to learn in all countries where the research was conducted except for Ireland and Luxembourg. English, either as a native language or as a second/foreign language, is spoken by 44% of EU citizens, followed by German with 36% and French with 30%.

With the enlargement of the European Union, the balance between French and German is slowly changing. More citizens in the new member states speak German (23% compared with 12% in the EU15) while fewer speak French or Spanish (3% and 1% respectively compared with 16% and 7% among the EU15 group). A notable exception is Romania, where 24% of the population speaks French as a foreign language compared to 6% who speak German as a foreign language. At the same time, the balance is being changed in the opposite direction by growth of the French-speaking population and decrease of the German-speaking population.

Language skills are unevenly distributed both over the geographical area of Europe and over sociodemographic groups. Reasonably good language competences are perceived in relatively small member states with several state languages, lesser used native languages or "language exchange" with neighbouring countries. This is the case in Luxembourg, where 92% speak at least two languages. Those who live in southern European countries or countries where one of the major European languages is a state language have a lower likelihood of speaking multiple foreign languages. Only 5% of Turks, 13% of Irish, 16% of Italians, 17% of Spaniards and 18% of Britons speak at least two languages apart from their native language.

European Commission
While documents for and communication with citizens are in every official EU language as a right, day-to-day work in the European Commission is based around its three working languages: English, French, and German. Of these, English and French are used the most often. The use of English vs. French depends greatly on the unit or directorate. Only a few of the commissioners use a language other than English or French as their working language. German is rarely used as a true working language in the Commission, and German media have called the dominance of English and French a discrimination against German (which is the most spoken mother tongue of the EU) and a violation of the regulations pertaining to the EU's working languages. The German Bundestag has repeatedly called for German to receive an equal position in the Commission alongside English and French. The language situation has also disappointed many in France, and Kristalina Georgieva, who is from Bulgaria, gained a round of applause when she told the European Parliament she would learn French while in the Commission.

Use of German has, however, been increasing in EU institutions, as has the number of people learning the language across Europe.

European Parliament
The European Parliament translates its proceedings into all official languages so that fellow MEPs can understand them better than if they had the delayed translation. Committee meetings also often default to the language most understood by those attending instead of listening to the translation.

Court of Justice
The working language of the Court of Justice of the European Union is French. The judges deliberate in French, pleadings and written legal submissions are translated into French, and the judgment is drafted in French. The Advocates-General, by contrast, may work and draft their opinions in any official language, as they do not take part in any deliberations. These opinions are then translated into French for the benefit of the judges and their deliberations.

European Central Bank
The working language of the European Central Bank is English.

Policy
The European Union's legal powers on legislative acts and other initiatives on language policy are based on the provisions of the Treaties of the European Union. In the EU, language policy is the responsibility of member states, and the European Union does not have a common "language policy". Based on the principle of subsidiarity, European Union institutions play a supporting role in this field, promoting cooperation between the member states and promoting the European dimension in the member states' language policies, particularly through the teaching and dissemination of the languages of the member states (Article 149.2). The rules governing the languages of the institutions of the Community shall, without prejudice to the provisions contained in the Statute of the Court of Justice, be determined by the council, acting unanimously (Article 290). All languages, in which was originally drawn up or was translated due to enlargement, are legally equally authentic. Every citizen of the Union may write to any of the EU institutions or bodies in one of these languages and receive an answer in the same language (Article 24 TFEU).

In the Charter of Fundamental Rights, legally binding since its inclusion in the Lisbon Treaty, the EU declares that it respects linguistic diversity (Article 22) and prohibits discrimination on grounds of language (Article 21). Respect for linguistic diversity is a fundamental value of the European Union, in the same way as respect for the person, openness towards other cultures, and tolerance and acceptance of other people.

Initiatives
Beginning with the  in 1990, the European Union invests more than €30 million a year (out of a €120 billion EU budget) promoting language learning through the Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci programmes in bursaries to enable language teachers to be trained abroad, placing foreign language assistants in schools, funding class exchanges to motivate pupils to learn languages, creating new language courses on CDs and the Internet, and projects that raise awareness of the benefits of language learning.

Through strategic studies, the Commission promotes debate, innovation, and the exchange of good practice. In addition, the mainstream actions of Community programmes which encourage mobility and transnational partnerships motivate participants to learn languages.

Youth exchanges, town twinning projects, and the European Voluntary Service also promote multilingualism. Since 1997, the Culture 2000 programme has financed the translation of around 2,000 literary works from and into European languages.

The new programmes proposed for implementation for the financial perspective 2007–2013 (Culture 2007, Youth in Action, and Lifelong Learning) will continue and develop this kind of support.

The EU used to provide the main financial support to the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages until 2010, a non-governmental organisation which represents the interests of the over 40 million citizens who belong to a regional and minority language community, and for the Mercator networks of universities active in research on lesser-used languages in Europe. Following a request from the European Parliament, the commission in 2004 launched a feasibility study on the possible creation of a new EU agency, the "European Agency for Language Learning and Linguistic Diversity." The study concludes that there are unmet needs in this field, and proposes two options: creating an agency or setting up a European network of "Language Diversity Centres." The Commission believes that a network would be the most appropriate next step and, where possible, should build on existing structures; it will examine the possibility of financing it on a multi-annual basis through the proposed Lifelong Learning programme. Another interesting step would be to translate important public websites, such as the one of the European Central Bank, or Frontex web site also, in at least one other language than English or French.

Although not an EU treaty, most EU member states have ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

To encourage language learning, the EU supported the Council of Europe initiatives for European Year of Languages 2001 and the annual celebration of European Day of Languages on 26 September.

To encourage the member states to cooperate and to disseminate best practice the Commission issued a Communication on 24 July 2003, on Promoting Language Learning and Linguistic Diversity: an Action Plan 2004–2006 and a Communication on 22 November 2005, on A New Framework Strategy for Multilingualism.

From 22 November 2004, the European Commissioner for Education and Culture portfolio included an explicit reference to languages and became European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Multilingualism with Ján Figeľ at the post. From 2007 until 2010, the European Commission had a special portfolio on languages, European Commissioner for Multilingualism. The post was held by Leonard Orban. Since 2010, the portfolio was merged with education and culture, again.

EU devotes a specialised subsite of its "Europa" portal to languages, the EUROPA Languages portal.

title: Languages of the European Union


text:
Fiat CR.32

The Fiat CR.32 was an Italian biplane fighter used in the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War. Designed by the aeronautical engineer Celestino Rosatelli, it was a compact, robust and highly manoeuvrable aircraft for its era, leading to it being a relatively popular fighter during the 1930s.

The CR.32 fought in North and East Africa, in Albania, and in the Mediterranean theatre. It was extensively used in the Spanish Civil War, where it gained a reputation as one of the most outstanding fighter biplanes of all time. It also saw service in the air forces of China, Austria, Hungary, Paraguay and Venezuela. It frequently performed impressive displays all over Europe in the hands of the Italian Pattuglie Acrobatiche. During the late 1930s, the CR.32 was overtaken by more advanced monoplane designs; by the start of the Second World War, it was considered to be obsolete. While it had been superseded by a number of newer Italian fighters, including the newer Fiat CR.42 Falco which had been derived from the CR.32, the type continued to be flown throughout the conflict.

Development
The Fiat CR.32 was designed by the aeronautical engineer Celestino Rosatelli. It was derived from the earlier Fiat CR.30, which had received limited production orders from the Regia Aeronautica but, within the space of 12 months, it was superseded by the newer CR.32. The CR.32 had a smaller and more streamlined fuselage than the CR.30, resulting in a more compact aircraft.

On 28 April 1933, the prototype CR.32, which was designated the MM.201, made its maiden flight from the Fiat company airfield at Turin. By the end of the year, the first production examples were already arriving with front line units of the Regia Aeronautica. Mass production of the type took place between 1933 and 1938. Four variants of the CR.32 were developed: the standard, bis, ter, and quater. The CR.32 bis had a more powerful Fiat A.30R V12 engine and two additional machine guns, while the ter and the quater retained the original armament, differing in the use of improved gunsights and instrumentation.

By 1938, the CR.32 had been rendered obsolete by advances in the field of aviation, including the arrival of a new generation of monoplane fighters, which were capable of superior performance. The CR.32 was directly succeeded by the Fiat CR.42 Falco, which was derived from the CR.32. During the development of this design, four CR.32s were converted to serve as prototypes.

Design
The Fiat CR.32's fuselage had the same structure as the earlier CR.30, using aluminium and steel tubes covered by duraluminium on the nose up to the cockpit, on the back, in the lower section under the tail, while a fabric covering was used on the sides and belly. According to Cattaneo, the fuselage was very robust for the time. The CR.32 had a fixed undercarriage with hydraulic shock absorbers; the wheels were housed in fairings and braking was pneumatically activated.

The wings and tail used a mixed composition, similar to the fuselage, composed of a pair of aluminium alloy tubular spars and square tubes, which were covered by fabric. It was a sesquiplane, the lower wing being shorter than the upper wing. The interplane struts were arranged to form a pair of Warren trusses on either side. Ailerons were only present upon the upper wings, which were balanced by out-rigged tabs mounted on steel struts. The empennage, which was largely composed of aluminium tubes, had a variable incidence tailplane and an aerodynamically-balanced elevator.

The cockpit of the CR.32 had an adjustable seat and a parachute, the latter of which being stored within the squab. Although it was considered to be fully instrumented for the era, the RA.80-1 radio set was only an optional piece of equipment. Other equipment included a fire extinguisher, gun camera, an oxygen system for the pilot; both an optical gunsight and survey camera could also be installed as optional item. The armament initially included a pair of 7.7 mm (.030 in) Breda-SAFAT machine guns (which was later substituted for a pair of 12.7 mm (.5 in) Breda-SAFAT guns), which were fitted on top of the engine cowling; each gun had an ammo capacity of 350 rounds each. Later examples were also furnished with a pair of hard points, which could accommodate up to 12 5lb bombs, a pair of 100lb bombs, or a single 200lb bomb.

The CR.32 was powered by a single water-cooled Fiat A.30 R.A. V12 engine. Designed in 1930, it was a 60° V 12, producing up to 447 kW (600 hp) at 2,600 rpm, reportedly inspired by the American Curtiss D-12. It drove a 2.82 meter (9 ft 4 in) two-blade metal propeller with pitch only adjustable on the ground, not in flight. The engine did not use the usual aviation gasoline, but instead ran on a mixture of petrol (55%), ethanol (23%) and benzol (22%). The main fuel tank, which was located between the engine and cockpit, carried 325 litres (85.9 US gal). There was another small 25 liter (6.6 US gal) auxiliary tank positioned in a streamlined fairing in the center of the upper wing.

Early operations
The new biplane proved to be an instant success. After a brief period of testing, the first production orders for the CR.32 were received during March 1934. Within a short amount of time, the type soon equipped the 1°, 3° and 4° Stormi of the Regia Aeronautica. The CR.32 was commonly well liked by its crews, being very maneuverable and benefitting from a relatively strong fuselage structure.

The Fiat biplanes were used for many aerobatic shows, in Italy and abroad. When foreign statesmen visited Rome, the 4° Stormo, Regia Aeronautica élite unit put on impressive displays with formations of five or ten aircraft. During 1936, air shows were organized above various other European capitals and major cities, and, during the following year, in South America. When the team returned, a brilliant display was put on in Berlin. Further overseas tours by Italian display teams, such as a South American expedition in 1938, were performed using the type. The CR.32's tight turning circle and excellent handling made the type ideal for aerobatic displays.

The stand-out feature of the CR.32 was its remarkable manoeuvrability. It is possible its outstanding performance and popularity amongst its pilots were responsible for a continued attitude within many officials of the Regia Aeronautica that the biplane platform remained a viable concept for further development and deployment even in the face of a new generation of monoplane fighters.

Spain

During 1938, Spain acquired a license to build the CR.32. Spanish manufacturer Hispano Aviación established a production line and constructed at least 100 examples, which were locally known under the designation HA-132-L Chirri. Some of these aircraft remained in military service as C.1 aerobatic trainers up until as late as 1953.

The Fiat CR.32 was used extensively in the Spanish Civil War on the side of the Fascist military rebellion against the Spanish Republic. At least 380 examples took part in the air battles fought over Spain, proving formidable adversaries to the Soviet Polikarpov I-15 biplane and Polikarpov I-16 monoplane that formed the backbone of the Spanish Republican Air Force. During 1936, the type had its baptism of fire. On 18 August, the first 12 CR.32s arrived in Spain and formed the Squadriglia Gamba di Ferro, Cucaracha, and Asso di Bastoni of 3° Stormo; three days later Tenente Vittorino Ceccherelli, a Gold Medal of Military Valor winner, shot down the first enemy aircraft, a Nieuport 52, over Cordoba. In total, the Italian government dispatched between 365 and 405 C.R.32s to Spain while between 127 and 131 were delivered directly to Nationalist aviation units. During the conflict, six aircraft were captured by Republican forces, according to Nico, one of these was shipped to the Soviet Union, where it underwent a detailed evaluation.

Thanks to the agile CR.32, the Italians managed to achieved air superiority over their Fuerzas Aéreas de la República Española opponents, who flew a motley collection of very different and often obsolete aircraft. The Fiat biplane proved to be effective in the theatre, the Aviazione Legionaria claiming 60 (48 confirmed) modern Russian Tupolev SB bombers, which were once believed to be impossible to intercept, as well as 242 Polikarpov I-15 biplane fighters, and 240 Polikarpov I-16 monoplane fighters, plus another hundred aircraft that were not confirmed. In exchange, C.R.32 losses were reportedly only 73. According to other sources, of the 376 Fiat shipped to Spain, 175 (43 Spanish operated and 132 Italian) were lost, including 99 (26 Spanish and 73 Italian) shot down, while, by January 1939, the number of I-15s shot down was just 88.

Spanish aces
The top scoring CR.32 ace was Spaniard Joaquín García Morato y Castaño, who was the leading Nationalist fighter pilot of the Spanish Civil War. He achieved 36 of his 40 victories while flying the Fiat biplane. He used the same aircraft, which carried the number 3-51 on the fuselage, until his death. During April 1939, shortly after the war had finished, Morato fatally crashed his faithful 3-51 while performing low aerobatics.

Another Nationalist CR.32 ace was Capitán Manuel Vázquez Sagastizábal, who claimed 21$1⁄3$ victories with Grupo 2-G-3,  before he was shot down and killed on 23 January 1939. Comandante Angel Salas Larrazabal, after one kill flying a Nieuport-Delage 52, flew multiple CR.32s, shooting down, on 29 October 1936, the first of the fast Soviet monoplane Tupolev SB-2 bombers to fall to Nationalist fighters. He shot down four more aircraft with the CR.32 before moving to a Heinkel He 51 unit. After two more victories, he joined the new Grupo 2-G-3. With this unit, again flying CR.32s, he raised his score to 16, including three SB-2s and an I-16 in a single sortie on 2 September 1938. Capitán Miguel Guerrero Garcia achieved nine of his 13 victories flying the Fiat biplane: four I-15s, three "Papagayos" (R-5s and Polikarpov-RZs assault bombers), and two I-16s.

Second World War

The aerobatic characteristics of the CR.32 and its success in Spain misled the Italian air ministry, which was convinced that a biplane fighter still had potential as a weapon of war. Consequently, during May 1939, prior to Italy entering the Second World War, large numbers of CR.32 fighters, in bis, ter, and quater versions, represented two-thirds of all fighters in the Regia Aeronautica. A total of 288 were based in Italy and North Africa, while 24 were stationed in East Africa.

North Africa
When Italy declared war on Britain and France on 10 June 1940, 36 CR.32s together with 51 Fiat CR.42s formed the operational fighter force of the Regia Aeronautica in Libya. The first combat between CR.32s and British aircraft came the following day. Six CR.32s intercepted a formation of Bristol Blenheim bombers attacking the airfield at El Adem, claiming two Blenheims shot down and the remaining four damaged (compared with actual British losses of two Blenheims lost and two damaged), for no losses. According to Cattaneo, instead of focusing on air-to-air dogfighting, CR.32 pilots typically engaged in strafing ground targets, acting as light attack aircraft instead; he stated these activities to have been of "limited effectiveness" in the campaign.

East Africa
Possibly the greatest wartime successes to be achieved by CR.32s were accomplished in Italian East Africa. Here, 410a and 411a Squadriglia CR.32s (which represented half of all the fighters operational in the Italian colony) destroyed a number of British and South African aircraft. In the hands of a skillful pilot, the CR.32 could be capable of defeating the faster, more powerful, and better-armed monoplanes, like the Hurricanes and the Blenheims.

The Fiats received their baptism of fire on 17 June, when CR. 32s of 411a Squadriglia flown by Tenente Aldo Meoli and Maresciallo Bossi attacked three South African Air Force Junkers Ju 86 bombers bound for Yavello, escorted by two Hurricanes of 1 SAAF Squadron. The Fiat CR.32s shot down one of the Ju 86s and then pounced on the Hurricanes, shooting down the one flown by 2/Lt B.L. Griffiths, who was killed in the crash. On the 7th of July, three CR.32s, escorting as many Caproni Ca.133s, intercepted three Hawker Hartebeests, and shot down the plane flown by Lt N.K. Rankin, killing the pilot and his gunner, Air Sgt D.H. Hughes. On 23 February 1941, while in the process of attacking the airfield at Makale, Maj Laurie Wilmot, who was flying a Hurricane, was bounced by Italian ace Alberto Veronese in a Fiat biplane. Wilmot was forced to crash-land, becoming a prisoner of war (PoW). Soon after, Capt Andrew Duncan hit Veronese, who was wounded and bailed out. The CR.32s obtained other kills, despite having to face an ever increasing number of more modern aircraft.

The 410a Squadriglia alone managed to shoot down 14 enemy aircraft, before being disbanded. But the impossibility of obtaining replacements and spare parts from the motherland caused the gradual thinning of the rows of CR.32s. On 10 January 1941 there were still 22 CR.32s in service, on 31 January there were 14, on 10 February 11 and on 5 March just eight. The last CR.32 survived until mid-April 1941.

Mediterranean
Fourteen CR.32s of 160° Gruppo and nine of 2° Gruppo from 6° Stormo saw action against Greece in the first weeks after the attack of 28 October 1940. Eight more from 163aa Squadriglia, based at Gadurrà airport on Rhodes, took part in the invasion of Crete. CR.32s of 3° Gruppo operated in Sardinia, but in the period of July–December 1940 their number fell from 28 to seven serviceable aircraft. Cattaneo observed that ground crews lacked the fuel, ammunition, and spare components to properly maintain their aircraft, often resulting to improvisation due to the poor supply situation, which severely impacted the fighter's operational effectiveness. The last front line CR.32 survived until mid-April 1941 when they were sent to the Scuola Caccia (Schools for fighter pilots). By 1942, the type was relegated to only night missions as newer fighters were put into service.

China
The first international operator of the CR.32 was Chiang Kai-shek's for China, which ordered 16 (according to other sources 24) CR.32s of the first series in 1933. The aircraft mounted Vickers 7.7 mm machine guns instead of the Breda-SAFAT, electric headlights, and the cooling fins on the oil tank in the nose were removed. Additionally, some were equipped with radios. They were based at Nangahang airport, near Shanghai. Some officers of the Chinese high command disliked the Fiat, but Chinese pilots appreciated that the Italian biplanes in comparative tests proved superior to the American Curtiss Hawk and Boeing P-26. The Chinese Government did not order more CR.32s as it was difficult to import alcohol and benzole to mix with petrol for the engines. In May 1936, only six CR.32s were still operational. In August 1937, the remaining CR.32s were used with some initial success in Shanghai against the invading Japanese. By late 1937, when the Chinese capital at Nanjing fell, all CR.32s had been lost.

Austria
In spring 1936, 45 CR.32s were ordered by Austria to equip Jagdgeschwader II at Wiener Neustadt. In March 1938, following the Anschluss with neighbouring Nazi Germany, the Austrian units were absorbed into the Luftwaffe, and, after a brief period, the 36 remaining aircraft were handed over to Hungary.

Hungary

The Magyar Királyi Honvéd Légierő, the Royal Hungarian Air Force (MKHL), acquired a total of 76 CR.32s during 1935 and 1936. MKHL Fiat biplanes had their baptism of fire in 1939, during the short conflict with the newly-formed state of Slovakia. The CR.32s, which were emblazoned with the red/white/green chevrons insignia, easily gained air superiority over the fledgling Slovak Air Force, which lost a few Avia B.534s and Letov S-328s during this action.

During the short conflict against Yugoslavia, fought in April 1941, the MKHL lost three CR.32s and, on 6 May 1941, the Hungarian Air Force still had 69 Fiat CR.32s on line. In June 1941, when the Kingdom of Hungary declared war on the Soviet Union, the CR.32 fighter equipped two of the units that supported the Hungarian Army on the Eastern Front: 1./I Group of 1st Fighter Wing, based in Szolnok, and 2./I Group, of 2nd Fighter Wing, based at Nyíregyháza. On 29 June, the first aerial combat over Hungary took place, when seven Tupolev SB-2 bombers attacked the railway station at Csap and were intercepted by the Fiat CR.32s from 2/3 Fighter squadron. The Fiat biplanes shot down three of the raiders while incurring no loss to themselves.

Following the acquisition of newer fighters, including the Fiat CR.42 and Reggiane Re.2000, the remaining Hungarian CR.32s were relegated being used for training missions only.

South Africa
A CR-32 was captured intact at Addis Adaba, made flyable and was sent to Zwartkop Air Station in August 1941. The CR-32 went on a public tour and then joined 6 Squadron in April 1942, serving as a hack. In November 1942 the plane was transferred to the Natal University Air Training Squadron, eventually being scrapped in 1945.

South America
In 1938, Venezuela acquired nine CR.32quaters (according to other sources, 10 aircraft.) Modifications included a larger radiator to assist engine cooling in tropical climate conditions. The aircraft were delivered to Maracay in the second half of 1938 and equipped the 1° Regimiento de Aviación Militar del Venezuela. With five CR.32s still serviceable, the aircraft were struck off charge in 1943.

A small number, estimated at four, went to Paraguay in 1938. Five CR.32quater fighters (registered 1-1, 1-3, 1-5, 1-7 and 1-9) were assigned to 1.a Escuadrilla de Caza of the Fuerzas Aéreas del Ejército Nacional del Paraguay. They did not arrive in time for military operations against Bolivia, but were in service for several years.

Variants
The Regia Aeronautica ordered 1,080 CR.32s (including the two prototypes and 23 aircraft rebuilt by SCA factory in Guidonia, near Rome, plus 52 without military registry numbers for Hungary). With 100 more CR.32quaters licence-built in Spain (as the Hispano Ha. 132L Chirri), the total CR.32 production numbers range from 1,306 to 1,332 examples.

 * CR.32
 * Armed with twin 7.7 mm (.303 in) or 12.7 mm (.5 in) machine guns and powered by 447 kW (600 hp) Fiat A.30 R.A.bis engine. Delivered to the Regia Aeronautica between March 1934 and February 1936.

 * CR.32bis
 * Close-support fighter version armed with twin Breda-SAFAT Mod.1928Av. 7.7 mm (.303 in) (a common field modification was to discard the 7.7 mm armament to reduce weight) and twin 12.7 mm (.5 in) machine guns. Bomb racks with ability to carry 100 kg (220 lb) bombload possible: 1 × 100 kg (220 lb) or 2 × 50 kg (110 lb).

 * CR.32ter
 * Revised CR.32bis with a gun-sight, strengthened undercarriage and removal of wing-mounted guns.

 * CR.32quater
 * Revised CR.32ter with reduced weight, added radio and max speed 356 km/h (221 mph) at 3,000 m (9,843 ft); 337 built for the Regia Aeronautica.

 * CR.33
 * 700 hp Fiat AC.33RC engine. Maximum speed 412 km/h at 3500 m. Only three prototypes were built.

 * CR.40
 * One prototype powered by a Bristol Mercury IV radial engine.

 * CR.40bis
 * One prototype only.

 * CR.41
 * One prototype only.

 * HA-132L Chirri
 * Spanish version; 100 were built and 49 more of those used during the war were rebuilt. A total of 40 were transformed into two-seaters and kept in service as an aerobatic trainer till 1953.

Operators

 * Austrian Air Force received 45 CR.32bis aircraft
 * undefined
 * Chinese Nationalist Air Force
 * undefined
 * Luftwaffe operated former Austrian aircraft
 * undefined
 * Royal Hungarian Air Force
 * Kingdom of Italy
 * Regia Aeronautica
 * Aviazione Legionaria
 * Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force
 * 🇵🇾 Paraguay
 * Paraguayan Air Arm ordered five aircraft in 1938.
 * Spanish State
 * Spanish Air Force
 * Spanish Republic
 * Operated captured aircraft
 * undefined
 * Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana
 * 🇻🇪 Venezuela
 * Venezuelan Air Force ordered nine aircraft in 1938.
 * Venezuelan Air Force ordered nine aircraft in 1938.

Surviving aircraft

 * C.1-328 – HA-132L on static display at the Italian Air Force Museum in Bracciano, Lazio. It was donated by the Spanish Air Force in 1955.
 * Composite – HA-132 on static display at the Museo del Aire in Cuatro Vientos, Madrid.
 * CR32 MM4666 in colours of 92sqd.on static display at the Italian Air Force in Codroipo, Udine

title: Fiat CR.32


text:
User talk:Crackshoe

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John Morris, Baron Morris of Aberavon

John Morris, Baron Morris of Aberavon, (5 November 1931 – 5 June 2023) was a British politician. He was a Labour Party Member of Parliament for over 41 years, from 1959 to 2001, which included a period as Secretary of State for Wales from 1974 to 1979 and as Attorney General between 1997 and 1999. He was the last living former Labour MP who was first elected in the 1950s. He was also the last surviving member of Harold Wilson's 1974–76 cabinet, and was the longest-serving Privy Counsellor at the time of his death. His combined parliamentary service totalled over 60 years.

Background and education
Morris was born in Capel Bangor, Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire, on 5 November 1931. He was educated at the Ardwyn School, the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. During the course of his national service, he was stationed with the Royal Welch Fusiliers, the Welch Regiment, and the South Wales Borderers.

In 1959, Morris married Margaret Lewis, and they had three daughters.

Legal career
Morris was a barrister and was called to the Bar by Gray's Inn in 1954. He served as a legal adviser and deputy general secretary for the Farmers' Union of Wales. He practised at 2 Bedford Row Chambers, took silk in 1973, and was made a Bencher of Gray's Inn in 1985. Between 1982 and 1997, he was a Recorder of the Crown Court.

Political career
Morris represented Aberavon as its Labour MP from 1959 onwards, and subsequently became the longest serving Welsh MP in Parliament, until his retirement in 2001. According to The Almanac of British Politics, Morris was a "moderate" Labour MP.

Morris served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Power and the Ministry of Transport, and Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence. Having been sworn of the Privy Council in the 1970 Birthday Honours, Morris joined the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales between 5 March 1974 and 4 May 1979 and returned to Government as the Attorney General for England and Wales and Northern Ireland between 1997 and 1999, having shadowed the role since 1983. As such, he was one of only a small handful of Labour ministers to hold office under Harold Wilson, James Callaghan and Tony Blair.

Other positions held
Morris was the Chancellor of the University of South Wales from the time of its formation in 2013. The University of South Wales was formed by a merger between University of Glamorgan (where Lord Morris was Chancellor from 2002) and the University of Wales, Newport. He succeeded fellow Labour politician Lord Merlyn-Rees as the Chancellor for the University of Glamorgan. Lord Morris was President of the London Welsh Trust, which runs the London Welsh Centre, Gray's Inn Road, from 2001 until 2008. He was also a council member of The Prince's Trust.

Later life and death
His memoir, Fifty Years in Politics and the Law, was published in 2011.

At the death of Robert Lindsay, 29th Earl of Crawford on 18 March 2023, Morris and Stratton Mills became the surviving former MPs with the earliest date of first election, both having first entered Parliament at the 1959 general election.

Morris died on 5 June 2023, at the age of 91.

Honours
Morris was raised to the peerage for life as Baron Morris of Aberavon, of Aberavon in the County of West Glamorgan and of Ceredigion in the County of Dyfed in the 2001 Dissolution Honours, was made Lord Lieutenant of Dyfed a year later and was appointed to the Order of the Garter as a Knight Companion (KG) in 2003.

title: John Morris, Baron Morris of Aberavon