The Commission failed to increase funding for languages or propose specific new programmes, lamented Basque MEP Mikel Irujo (Spain), speaking alongside EFA colleagues Jill Evans of Welsh party Plaid Cymru (UK) and Transylvanian independent László Tőkés (Romania) at a press conference on 23 September.
The MEPs also complained that the Commission was not doing "more to promote minority languages at EU level" as well as "those languages that do not yet have official status," with Evans in particular repeating previous demands for Welsh to become a fully-fledged EU language (EurActiv 05/06/08).
"Given that regional and minority languages are at least referred to in this document, we would expect any measures proposed to extend to these languages too," they said, calling on Multilingualism Commissioner Leonard Orban to commit himself to this. "My main criticism is that the report does not recognise the right of all EU citizens to address public authorities in their mother tongue," said Irujo, referring to languages like Catalan.
Meanwhile Tőkés, a member of Romania's Hungarian minority, went even further, complaining that Orban's communication does not seek to protect endangered languages, for which the recognition of minority rights "would just be a first step".
Irujo also lamented the fact that "too much responsibility [for implementing the strategy] is left with member states" because "some are not the best pupils when it comes to multilingualism". "We expected the Commission to do more than this," he said, notably to promote the use of new language learning technologies like the Internet.
But the EU executive pointed out that it had long supported the development of modern technologies, notably speech recognition applications and computer-assisted translation. The technology assists the 2,350 staff in its translation directorate-general (1,750 translators and 600 support staff) with their vast workload (1.7m pages translated in 2007). Some of these were developed within the DG itself, it added.
Despite their disappointment, the EFA parliamentarians were quick to praise the EU executive for publishing the document, hailing it for triggering renewed debate and providing "a good basis on which to build future work".
Commissioner Orban will be in Parliament on 6 October to discuss the new multilingualism strategy with MEPs.
