Leonard Orban - Views On Multilingualism

Views On Multilingualism

In his hearing at the European Parliament, Leonard Orban focused on defending the importance of his post in presenting the EU language policy, emphasising foreign language learning and describing the concrete initiatives he intended to implement.

Orban said that he intended to spearhead the Commission's work on a portfolio that has become more important with every enlargement and assured the Members of the European Parliament that his portfolio was a substantial one, covering a range of important political and managerial responsibilities. He also described how his portforlio would contribute to economic competitiveness, the social dimension of the EU and the intercultural dialogue and stated that it would provide a forum for European political dialogue.

Orban told the Committee that the multilingual dimension of the EU must be made mainstream in all relevant EU policies and programmes and should not be seen as a separate, isolated policy. He stated that, "Politically, I will steer the Commission's work on bringing an active multilingualism policy into a variety of policies which are the key to the functioning of the EU and the internal market: culture, education and competitiveness." In addition, he claimed that multilingualism would be commercially advantageous as, "At first sight, one single language might appear easier to manage multilingualism can also give any industry a competitive advantage if it helps them to tap local markets and create new products which also cater for multilingualism." According to Orban, multilingualism promotes labour mobility, tolerance and a sense of European citizenship and, as an integral aspect of the legitimacy, transparency and democracy of the European integration, it contributes to a successful EU communication policy. Within the Lisbon strategy, the target for foreign language learning is “mother tongue plus two,” which means that English language skills on their own are not sufficient. To address this, Orban aims to improve language teaching and to make the media and new communication technologies more language-friendly. He underlined that, "our efforts to support multilingualism are not limited to EU languages; we are also encouraging training in Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Turkish and Russian." He added that, "The promotion of language learning and linguistic diversity is a general objective of the new programme for lifelong learning launched in 2007. For the first time, it will be open to all languages spoken in the European Union as well as to the languages of the EU's main trading partners." Orban claims that respect for linguistic diversity and the fight against discrimination on the basis of language are cornerstones for a social Europe; he states that, "Europe's linguistic and cultural diversity is a source of richness which also needs to be nurtured and promoted," which presumably includes all languages, national, regional, minority and migrant. However, Orban agreed that the protection of language rights was a matter for individual member states and his view is that, "When it comes to language rights, I am not in favour of adopting legislation at European level to be imposed on Member States."

Orban's remit included the development of the European Indicator of Language Competence, the creation of a Business Forum on Multilingualism and Juvenes Translatores, a translation contest between schools from all over Europe as part of the events marking the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. In addition to the Lifelong Learning Programme 2007–2013 and other educational and cultural programmes, Orban promoted multilingualism within other relevant policies and programmes, including the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, the European Social Fund and immigration initiatives. He also intended to contribute to the 2008 European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, where multilingualism played a fundamental part. On planning further policy, Orban promised to, "carefully analyse the results from the Action Plan for the promotion of language learning and linguistic diversity, the recommendations from the High Level Group on Multilingualism and the activities of the Commission internal network for multilingualism. Before the end of 2007, I would organise a Ministerial conference to discuss the way forward. I would then propose a new Action Plan in 2008 to continue work in this area."

His views on multilingualism fall in line with the current European Union language policy as described in the Communication from the Commission "A New Framework Strategy for Multilingualism" on November 22, 2005.