Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-27-Speech-4-045"
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"en.20060427.3.4-045"2
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".
Mr President, a nation’s culture, existence and development are rooted in its language. In addition to cultural importance, every language has special significance in terms of nation-building and also in social and economic terms. Language is therefore important in dealings with the administration and for legal purposes in their broadest sense.
Research suggests that almost half of the several thousand languages currently used by the nations of the world will disappear over the next 100 years. A significant amount of the knowledge amassed over the centuries will disappear with them. Accordingly, individual countries and nations are implementing a range of measures to protect their languages. Some, like Germany, have provisions in their constitutions to this effect. In others such as France, Poland and Slovakia, the national parliaments have passed laws to this end.
Mr Mavrommatis’ report deals exclusively with the motion for a European Parliament resolution on measures to promote multilingualism and language learning in the European Union, together with establishing language competence. It enshrines a strong preference towards two or five languages. Not one of them is a Slavonic language, even though one in four of the Union’s citizens use a language of this type. By way of example, I could refer to Polish, a language used by more than 10% of the population of the Union.
Instead of referring to multilingualism, therefore, we should refer to the culturally dominant nations restricting and displacing the culture of smaller ones. We should refer to the operation of European institutions and the competencies of their officials, including preparing them to carry out their duties in a multilingual Europe.
The administrative dimension of language is quite different from its economic or cultural dimensions. Research and checks have revealed widespread infringement of provisions protecting national languages, especially in the new Member States. This can be verified simply by visiting a supermarket and looking at the goods on the shelves. It would be unusual to find that the information on consumption and use of these goods had been translated. Such systematic restriction of multilingualism benefits entrepreneurs at the expense of consumers. No thought is given to the fact that the European Union will only become strong and have a
if it becomes user-friendly and if it makes it possible for its citizens to demonstrate respect for each other and for their cultural differences, including linguistic ones."@en1
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