"Multilingualism is a key element of the European Union" which "underlines cultural diversity and guarantees the equal treatment of European citizens". The report tackled by the European Parliament today was entrusted to Alexander Stubb, Finnish MEP. The report was a response to the report by the European Court of Auditors on the translation expenses borne by the Commission, the Parliament and the Council. Stubb answered the objections to excessive costs with figures. He explained that "the translating and interpreting cost is just 1% of the overall budget of the Union". Then, he insisted on the "principles": "Multilingualism guarantees the right of citizens to communicate with institutions" in the 23 official languages, "allowing them to carry out democratic control". In the same way, the language services make Brussels and Strasbourg institutions "more transparent". However, the parliamentary report did not ignore the cost of the service, and insisted on the concept of "controlled integral multilingualism" with the aim of "limiting expenses within an acceptable financial threshold". In this respect, a few lines of action were suggested, starting from a better selection of the texts to be translated, a higher collaboration among the services of several institutions, and the reduction of the page cost.” ” ” “
