Communicating and cooperating” “

“Multilingualism is an essential principle of the European Union: to achieve this objective, the Commission published in recent weeks its first Communication on the question, under the title “A new framework strategy for multilingualism”. The question is at the centre of a reflection by CLARE COFFEY , published in the January number of “Europe infos”, the monthly of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) and by the Catholic Office of Information and Initiative for Europe (OCIPE). A MULTILINGUAL EUROPE. The Union currently comprises 20 official languages: a number destined to increase in 2007 to include Gaelic, and Bulgarian and Romanian after the accession of these two countries. “In its Communication – notes Coffey – the Commission recognises that the European institutions and citizens have a need to invest in multilingualism and to promote it, not only to foster communication”, but also “as a key element for the reinforcement of the European economy and the vitality of its cultural diversity”. The contrasts revealed between EU member states in this area are very marked: in Lithuania, for example, 99% of the population is able to converse in a language other than its own: a percentage that drops to 29% in Hungary. To avoid the most studied language being always English, after a feasibility study (May 2005), “the Commission – continues Coffey – recommends the establishment of a network of Centres for Language Diversity, with the aim of promoting the learning of languages”. Language teaching should begin in primary school. Moreover, “with a view to increasing European economic competitiveness, the Commission should undertake to formulate a follow up to Plan 2002 on skills and mobility, because a multilingual labour force has greater chances of penetrating new markets”. The question, concludes Coffey, “will be tackled in 2006, European Year of Worker Mobility”. MEDITERRANEAN COOPERATION. “A EuroMed partnership will only be able to fully develop when the southern Mediterranean-rim countries achieve closer cooperation with one another”, declares STEFAN LUNTE, following the failure of the EuroMed summit in late November. The summit was supposed to have revived the Barcelona process; instead, it placed a question mark over future cooperation between the two shores of the Mediterranean. Not only the documents that came out of the summit “proved a disappointment”, says Lunte. The summit was also deserted by most of the heads of state of the Arab countries: “The question is now being asked whether the massive non-attendance must not be taken as symbolising the failure of the Barcelona process tout court”. That failure is attributable in part to “the European assumption – an unrealistic one, suggests Lunte – that the Mediterranean-rim countries could develop, through external financial and moral incentives, into a region where the level of cooperation attains something, at least approximately, like that of the EU”. So what then should be the task of the EU? Improving “the general conditions for regional co-operation in the southern Mediterranean area”, argues Lunte, because “in the long run a comprehensive partnership will only be able to develop when ties on the level of civil society are formed”. According to the journalist, this task “could be significantly facilitated by the churches in Europe”, since “without pre-existing cultural and spiritual ties” political rapprochement is doomed to failure. WOMEN AND LOCAL POLITICS. The low level of female participation in politics at the local and regional level is analysed by STEPHEN GETHINS, political adviser to the UEN-EA (Union for the Europe of Nations – European Alliance). He is convinced that “to foster a dynamic democracy it is of fundamental importance to encourage the active participation of women in local politics”, since this is a level of political action “crucial in terms of representation”. Irrespective of the debates on whether we should adopt a system of “positive discrimination, or setting quotas of elected women”, or “a system founded on the contrary on merit, within which women represent a model to encourage others to enter politics”, Gethins maintains that it is precisely “local politics that have most impact on the citizens of Europe”. “The local authorities, in fact, are those most implicated in the daily life of the citizens under their administration through the provision of services ranging from refuse collection to schools”. Since “local politics are the mainstay of European democracy – argues Gethins –, a systematic pyramidal approach to the question of the unequal representation of the sexes needs to be adopted”. “It’s one thing – he concludes – to insert women in national parliamentary lists; it’s quite another to ensure their success in local political life”: an objective that requires “the overcoming of prejudices that still exist on the role of women in local communities”.