PROPOSAL OF RESOLUTION ACCORDING TO ARTICLE 45 OF THE RULES OF PROCEDURE ON THE REVISION OF TREATIES AND THE QUESTION OF THE COMMUNICATION WITHIN THE INSTITUTIONS AND BETWEEN THE CITIZENS OF THE UNION

The European Parliament,

A. Recalling that the Treaty of Maastricht and, in 1995, the European Council, affirmed the importance of liguistic diversity for the Union, which is an essential aspect of the European dimension and identity and of the common cultural heritage;

B. Recalling that the lack of a lasting solution for the language problem may threaten long term political cohesion of the European Union;

C. Recalling that article 27 of the Pact on Civil and Political Rights of 1976 and the Declaration on the Rights of the Individual, adopted by the UN General Assembly on 21 February 1992, recognises the right of persons belonging to linguistic minorities to use their own language;

D. Considering that the translation and interpretation costs of the work of the European Parliament covers 33% of its budget;

E. Considering that interruptions caused by mistakes in the translations are becoming more frequent in the voting procedures and at other times during the parliamentary work;

F. Considering that with the next enlargement of the European Union with Cyprus, Malta, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, the number of official languages will increase from 11 to 15, while the number of linguistic combinations will increase from 110 to 210 (without counting Maltese);

G. Considering that with the successive enlargement of the EU with Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the number of the official languages will increase from 15 to 19, while the linguistic combinations will be 342;

H. Considering that with the enlargement with other centraleastern states, such as Slovakia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania, Croatia, Serbia-Montenegro, and Bosnia, the number of official languages will increase to 25, and the linguistic combinations will therefore be 600;

I. Considering that with 25 languages the maximum of its linguistic expansion has been reached or almost reached, the translation and interpretation service will have to work with 6 different linguistic families;

J. Considering that the successive enlargements and the increase of languages that follow from this, will ultimately not only influence the budget of the Parliament, but also the functioning of the present interpretation-translation system in such a way .....

K. Considering that already two official national languages, galic and luxemburgish, are not included in the translations andinterpretations within the institutions of the EU;

L. Considering that a number of languages that posses official status at the regional level, such as catalan and basque, are not considered official languages of the EU, even if they are spoken by more people than some official languages of the Union;

M. Considering that there are living other linguistic communities within the borders of the EU as it exists today, such as the Corsican, Gallic, Ladinian, Sardinian, 'Occitanian', Breton, Frisian, Alsatian and other communities;

N. Considering moreover the existence of languages spoken by cohesive transnational minorities, such as the gypsy and yiddish languages, within the EU;

O. Considering that with 11 official languages the adoption of a bridge language for the translation-interpretation system will reduce the number of linguistic combinations from the present 110 to 24, while for the scenario of 25 official languages the combinations will be reduced from 600 to 24;

P. Recalling that in the course of a century of its existence, Esperanto has shown to be an international communication instrument that is simple, effective and egalitarian;

Q. Recalling that Esperanto is a non-competitive language compared with other so-called ethnic languages, and therefore preserves the dignity of each existing language;

R. Recalling that at three different occasions, in 1954, 1985 and 1993, UNESCO has officially supported the International Language called Esperanto as an instrument for peace and its important objectives;

S. Recalling that the propaedeutic quality of Esperanto for the successive learning of other languages has been recognised by numerous studies and academic research, such as done by the Italian Ministry of Public Instruction (memo Nr 126 of 10 April 1995);

The European Parliament,

1. requests the Commission to realise an experiment within the whole of the countries of the Union, to accelerate the learning of foreign languages through the study of a planned language such as Esperanto;

2. requests the Commission to realise a study on the introduction of the teaching of a planned language such as Esperanto as second or third language, there where the regional or minority language is taught as first language and the national or official language as second language, in all the primary and secondary schools of the EU;

3. entrusts its general secretariat to realise a study on the feasibility and economic and financial implications of the introduction of a planned language, such as Esperanto, as bridgelanguage and legal reference language in the translation and interpretation system, anticipating especially the experimental use of Esperanto as bridge language for interpretation;

4. entrusts its President to transfer the present resolution to the President of the Council, the President of the Commission, the presidents of the parliaments and to the ministers of education or 'public instruction' of the member States.