Brussels, 28/04/2006 (Agence Europe) - The report of Manolis Mavrommatis (EPP-ED, Greece) on “the promotion of multilingualism and language learning in the European Union and the creation of a European indicator of linguistic competencies” was adopted in Thursday's plenary by 435 votes for, 22 against, with 23 abstentions. To encourage communication and mobility in the European Union it is important that citizens know several languages - this is the central message of the report. MEPs are therefore insisting on the need to step up efforts towards reaching the objective set during the Barcelona Council in March 2002, namely being fluent in more than two languages. With regard to the European indicator of linguistic competencies proposed by the European Commission, which sets out to measure overall competencies in a foreign language in four areas: reading; aural comprehension; listening, oral and written expression, MEPs consider that the data should be collected regularly so that they comply with other international indicators of the same kind. The indicator should also register the competency of a population sample at each of the six levels in the Council of Europe's “Common European Reference Framework for Languages”, which has been widely adopted and used by several Member States. Linguistic competencies will initially be evaluated in five languages used in the Union (English, French, German, Spanish and Italian) but MEPs insist that other languages be adopted later. Parliament underlined that the indicator will not only be an effective instrument for the Commission in helping to collect information on linguistic competences among young people, in particular, but it will allow for a comparison to be made of policies in Member States, as well as facilitating the exchange of good practices by providing a new boost to language learning. The report calls for the Council to adopt the parameters and timetable proposed by the Commission for the implementation of the indicator in order to organise an initial pilot exercise.