Brussels, 15/02/2008 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission's idea of promoting the learning of a “personal adoptive language” caused mixed reactions among ministers during the ministerial conference on multilingualism organised on Friday 15 February at the initiative of Commissioner Leonard Orban and the Slovenian EU Council Presidency. Some described the idea as “utopia” while others preferred to focus on current initiatives rather than new initiatives. Others were more enthusiastic, said Commissioner Orban. Milan Sver, the Slovenian minister for education and sports, said the “concept is great” hoping it might be implemented. He said that, although there could be problems initially, the concept would prove useful in the future. The idea of learning a “personal adoptive language” (the term was preferred to “second mother tongue” to avoid friction in multilingual countries, Mr Orban said) had been proposed by a group of intellectuals on 31 January in their study on the advantages that language learning held for intercultural dialogue, the conclusions of which will allow the Commission to develop a new strategy on multilingualism due to be ready in September (see EUROPE 9592). The results of the study were presented to ministers during the conference. “We cannot content ourselves any longer with the comfortable thought that English is enough. It is not. As heads of state and government acknowledged in Barcelona six years ago, where they committed to teach 'mother tongue + 2' from an early age”, said Leonard Orban, regretting that this objective is currently far from being reached in most member states.
The ministerial conference on multilingualism, the first of its kind ever organised by the Commission, aimed to list areas in which new linguistic measures are needed both at national and at European level. Another objective was to find an agreement on common measures to be taken during the next five years. Multilingualism is a politically sensitive portfolio and decisions concerning this sector remain under the responsibility of member states. Leonard Orban stressed that he fully respected the principle of subsidiarity. His objective is to establish a long term sustainable policy upheld by all member states. In his introduction, Amin Maalouf, who chairs the group of intellectuals, stressed the specific power of language in intercultural dialogue but also for acceptance of oneself as an individual in a group of a culture other than one's own. “An over-emphasised feeling of identity often springs from a feeling of guilt with regard to one's own culture (…) An immigrant (…) who feels that his culture is respected by his host country has less of a need to compensate his thirst for identity in another manner”, he stressed. Mr Maalouf said that a knowledge of languages is thus a “powerful antidote for fanaticism”. Count Etienne Davignon, who is also a member of the intellectual group, highlighted the non-negligible advantage that a knowledge of languages has for Europe's competitiveness. (I.L.)