Brussels, 10/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - In the framework of the European year for languages 2001, whose slogan is "Languages open doors", the European Commission chose a first slice of 43 projects that will benefit from a Community subsidy of around EUR 1.7 million. The projects selected cover minority languages and sign languages as well as the even official EU languages, Irish, Luxembourgish, Icelandic and Norwegian. The Swedish Presidency will organise a open demonstration of the European year for Languages from next 18 to 10 February in Lund. Organised by the EU and the Council of Europe, the European year for Languages has two themes, which explain its slogan: - Europe is, and remains, multilingual; - the learning of languages brings significant economic and cultural advantages. The Commission is co-financing projects matching these aims at the local, regional and national levels. The 43 projects adopted will be followed by a second selection for the projects starting on 1 June 2001: the cut off date for the handing in of applications for this second exercise is next 15 February.
Other than this co-financing of projects, the Commission is organising European actions: information campaigns, establishment of a multilingual and interactive web site, Eurobarometer opinion polls on the language abilities of Europeans, European competitions, European days (26 September 2001), the training week for languages aimed at adults (from 5 to 11 May 2001) etc.
The list of project selected is available from the Commission spokesperson (Tel: 02 295 6964 - Fax: 02 296 3000) and a joint EU/Council of Europe web site is being built: http://www.eurolang2001.org .