The association For Governance for Europe for Multilingualism (GEM+) draws MEPs’ attention to the fact that the legislative proposal establishing the ‘digital green certificate’—designed to facilitate free movement in the EU during the Covid-19 pandemic—gives the English language a privileged status.
GEM+ emphasises that a provision in the regulation’s original proposal, which the EU Council’s political agreement in principle maintains (see EUROPE 12698/3), stipulates that the information contained in the future certificate should be presented “in the official language(s) of the issuing Member State and in English”.
In the opinion of GEM+, this provision sets a dangerous precedent in that it establishes a hierarchy among the languages, infringes the fundamental rights of EU citizens, and ignores the demographic and statistical realities related to tourism in the European Union.
Consequently, the association proposes that MEPs amend the provision as follows: the information contained in the certificate shall be presented “in the official language(s) of the issuing Member State without prejudice to Member States to also issuing such certificates in at least two official languages of the European Union, one of which shall be chosen from the five most widely spoken mother tongues in the European Union”.
For more information: https://bit.ly/3dxdWyC (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)