03/06/2004 (Agence Europe) - In an article published in Civiltà European entitled L'Europa e il nuovo colonialismo, European civil servant Anna Maria Campogrande, a founder member of the International Observatory for the French Language, has once again raised the issue of multilingualism in the European institutions. Ms Campogrande, a member of staff in the Directorate General for External Relations of the Commission, and who is speaking in an unofficial capacity here, notes that the in order to put all the European citizens on the same footing, the founding fathers had decided that all the languages of the Member States were "official and working languages". In the beginning, there were four languages for six countries, then with fifteen countries, this grew to eleven, she noted. According to Ms Campogrande, "the language services of the European institutions, which have been a unique model, with a rare efficiency, should have received far more attention". However, notably in terms of this most recent wave of enlargement, "English has started to take on the role of lingua franca", she protested, continuing: recently, the European Commission decided, "in total absence of transparency", to reduce the "procedural languages" to just three- English, French and German- which have, de facto, become its working languages. Ms Campogrande does not understand by Italian and Spanish have this fallen by the wayside, as they are both languages "of great vitality and widely spoken", which "are learned through passion and taste, not out of obligation". The situation in the Council Secretariat is scarcely any better, she complains, although she acknowledges that it is getting slightly better, "but only partly"; in the European Parliament, "slightly more attentive to the requirements of democracy". Apart from this, all of the European institutions, "which take their lead from consultants devoid of any culture of general interests and public service, who argue budgets to dismantle services (...) which are the expression (...) of willingness to involve all European citizens in the process of integration underway", she concluded.