Brussels, 20/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 20 May, the Council also adopted conclusions on multilingualism and developing language skills. These conclusions provide first and foremost a response to the work carried out by the Commission for developing a possible EU reference standard on the learning of languages.
In its conclusions, the Council calls on member states to adopt and strengthen measures to promote multilingualism and improve the quality and effectiveness of learning and teaching languages. Assessing language skills as proposed in the conclusions seeks to help member states in this task, and to assess overall progress made throughout the EU in terms of developing these skills. Language diversity is a an essential part of European culture and inter-cultural dialogue. The ability to communicate in a language other than one's mother tongue is a key skill that particularly helps promote mobility, employability and citizens' personal development, underlines the Council. Nonetheless, substantial improvement is required in this situation, given the most recent findings of the Eurydice network survey, which highlight the low-level of language learning among Europeans. (IL)