Proposal for a Council Decision on the adoption of a multiannual programme to promote the linguistic diversity of the Community in the information society (96/C 364/07) (Text with EEA relevance) COM(95) 486 final -

95/0263(CNS)

(Submitted by the Commission on 2 October 1996)

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 130 (3) thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,

Having regard to the opinion of the European Parliament,

Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee,

Whereas the advent of the information society provides industry with new prospects for communication and trade on European and world markets which are marked by a rich linguistic and cultural diversity;

Whereas industry must work out specific and adequate solutions to overcome the linguistic barriers if it is to benefit fully from the advantages of the internal market and remain competitive on world markets;

Whereas it is necessary to encourage the use of technologies, tools and methods which reduce the cost of transferring information between languages, while also assuring the quality of translations, particularly in the case of literary translation, which requires a specific creative effort;

Whereas the European Council in Corfu on 24 and 25 June 1994 stressed the importance of the cultural and linguistic aspects of the information society; whereas the European Council in Cannes on 26 and 27 June 1995, restated the importance to the European Union of its linguistic diversity;

Whereas the emergence of the information society could afford the citizens of Europe greater access to information and offer an outstanding opportunity to exploit the cultural and linguistic wealth and diversity of the Community;

Whereas language policies are a matter for the Member States, taking account of Community law; whereas, however, promoting the development of modern language processing tools and their use is a field of activity in which Community action is justified in order to achieve substantial economies of scale by stimulating suitable cooperation between those involved in the various language areas; whereas the measures to be taken at Community level must be commensurate with the objectives to be attained and concern only those fields which are likely to produce an added value for Europe;

Whereas it is in the interests of the Community to support efforts to set up an infrastructure encouraging the creation and exploitation of the language resources required to improve language services and tools and give a boost to R& D work;

Whereas the Community should also mobilize the language industries and help create an environment which is conducive to their expansion;

Whereas the information and communications technology industries should be encouraged to draw up standards which take account of linguistic diversity and incorporate them in their products and applications;

Whereas it is useful for the European institutions and the administrations concerned in the Member States to collaborate more closely in order to reduce the cost of developing and using the language tools required to carry out their tasks;

Whereas the actions to be carried out in implementing this programme should be coordinated closely with initiatives implemented under other Community programmes with a view to setting up a multilingual information society;

Whereas mutual benefits can be obtained by involving international organizations and legal entities from third countries in the implementation of all or part of the programme, while respecting the general policies of the Community towards these organizations,

HAS ADOPTED THIS DECISION:

Article 1

A Community programme which aims to:

(a) encourage the use of technologies, tools and methods which reduce the cost of transferring information between languages and the development of multilingual services;

(b) stimulate the expansion of the languages industries;

(c) promote the development of multilingual services;

(d) promote the linguistic diversity of the European Union in the global information society;

is adopted for the period running from the date upon which this Decision takes effect until 31 December 1998.

Article 2

The following actions shall be undertaken under the responsibility of the Commission and in accordance with the action lines contained in Annex I and the procedures for implementing the programme set out in Annex II:

(a) support for attempts to construct an infrastructure for European language resources and encouragement for those involved;

(b) the mobilization and expansion of the language industries by encouraging the use of modern language technologies and tools and their incorporation into computer applications;

(c) promotion of the use of advanced language tools in the European public sector.

None of these actions should duplicate the work being carried out in these fields under Community or national programmes.

Article 3

1. The budgetary authority shall determine the appropriations for each financial year, subject to the availability of resources within the context of the financial outlook.

2. The Community's financial contribution to the shared-cost projects shall, as a general rule, be 50 %.

Article 4

1. The Commission shall be responsible for the implementation of the programme.

2. The Commission shall be assisted by a committee of an advisory nature composed of representatives of the Member States and chaired by the representative of the Commission.

The representative of the Commission shall submit to the committee a draft of the measures to be taken. The committee shall deliver its opinion on the draft within a time limit which the chairman may lay down according to the urgency of the matter, if necessary by taking a vote.

The opinion shall be recorded in the minutes; in addition, each Member State shall have the right to request that its position be recorded in the minutes.

The Commission shall take the utmost account of the opinion delivered by the committee. It shall inform the committee of the manner in which its opinion has been taken into account.

Article 5

The procedure laid down in Article 4 (3) shall apply to:

(a) the work programme for carrying out the action lines set out in Annex I;

(b) the content of the calls for proposals;

(c) the selection of the actions proposed for Community financing and the estimated amount of this financing for each action, where this amount is equal to or exceeds ECU 0,5 million;

(d) the procedures for evaluating the results of the programme;

(e) adaptation of the procedures for carrying out the programme laid down in Annex II;

(f) the decision to allow the participation of legal entities from third countries.

Article 6

Upon completion of the programme, the Commission shall present to the European Parliament, the Council and the Economic and Social Committee an evaluation report on the results obtained through implementing the actions referred to in Article 2.

Article 7

This Decision is addressed to the Member States.

ANNEX I

ACTION LINES

1. Action line 1: Supporting the construction of an infrastructure for European language resources

Language resources such as dictionaries, terminological databanks, grammar books, collections of texts and voice recordings are an essential raw material for linguistic research, the development of language-processing tools integrated into data processing systems and for improving translation services. Considerable amounts of money have already been invested by the Member States, the Commission and some private companies on producing language resources of varying size and complexity. The full utilization of these resources is currently being hampered by the fact that they are mainly monolingual and their basic specifications sometimes differ, thus limiting their wider use. In addition, they are often difficult to locate. The aim of this action line is to support efforts to construct a European infrastructure for multilingual language resources.

1.1. The Commission will lend its support for the starting up of the activities of the European language resources association (ELRA), whose aims are to:

- compile an inventory of the language resources available in the Community,

- introduce mechanisms to ensure that they are disseminated throughout the Community,

- promote the application of common standards to ensure their compatibility and enable quality certification.

1.2. The work in the field of terminology covers a vast range of activities with important implications for trade, science, the cultural sector and technology and the implementation of Community decisions, directives and regulations. This work is being undertaken by a very wide range of public and private operators who often lack the means to coordinate their actions with those of their counterparts in other Member States.

The Commission will encourage the launch of concerted actions between interested bodies in the different Member States in areas which have priority in attaining the objectives of Community policies. To this end, it will, where necessary, make financial contributions to expenditure involved in the introduction of concerted European action among the bodies concerned, particularly addressing standards, dissemination of information and networking.

1.3. The availability of lexicographical databanks and voice recordings which are suited to the development of data processing applications and cover all the Community languages is essential in order for a European language industry to emerge. Most of the resources currently available in Europe are monolingual and mutually incompatible, which makes them impossible to use for the production of multilingual tools. In this field too, the Commission will encourage the launch of concerted actions between public and private sector operators in the different Member States with the aim of developing compatible vocal and lexicographical resources which conform to generally-accepted standards.

1.4. The Commission will ensure that the concerted actions receiving its support have appropriate links with international work in this field.

2. Action line 2: Mobilizing and expanding the language industries

It is the private sector's role to produce and market modern tools facilitating the development of multilingual data processing applications and information transfer between languages. Europe has a solid scientific and technological base in this field which has been strengthened by Community research and development programmes, in particular the programmes relating to information and communications technologies and telematic systems of general interest. However, the European market lags behind when it comes to exploiting the advances made by research in the area of language engineering. A concentrated effort needs to be made to speed up the process of getting new language processing technology onto the market, particularly as part of the actions for disseminating and exploiting the results of research carried out under the framework programme and the specific programmes. All the action lines proposed in the present programme seek to create an environment which is conducive to the expansion of the language industries such as language engineering and translation industries.

The aim of this action line is to spur the language industries into action by stimulating technology transfer and demand through a limited number of shared-cost demonstration projects which could act as a catalyst in certain key sectors.

2.1. A number of industries has experimented with controlled language to facilitate drafting of technical documents and user support information. This approach improves general document management and allows effective use of machine-translation. A limited number of shared cost projects will demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of integrating controlled language, authoring and translation tools, in operational document management systems for different industrial and business environments.

2.2. Localization of multimedia software, including translation of the spoken and written word, is becoming increasingly in demand in the information society. To stimulate professionalism and to improve competitiveness of the localization and the multimedia industries, a call will be issued to launch a small number of shared cost projects, demonstrating the integration of localization methodology and tools, training of localization staff and developing best practice guidelines of particular importance for SME's.

2.3. The Commission will promote the use of networks by the translation and interpretation industries. These give access to advanced tools, including electronic dictionaries, improve logistics, allow integration with other functions, and generally improve the functioning of the translation market. A call for proposals will ask for the definition and implementation of European translation directory services, the definition of an open translation environment in Europe, and for pan-European tele-translation and tele-interpretation demonstrators with the involvement of the translation industry and profession.

3. Action line 3: Promoting the use of advanced language tools in the European public sector On account of their linguistic obligations, the European institutions, and the Commission in particular, have had to spend a substantial amount on acquiring and perfecting advanced tools which have become indispensable for the efficient processing of an increasing volume of translations and multilingual documents. In addition, through their daily translation activities they are also helping to compile important multilingual language resources in the various fields of Community activity. With the introduction of the Single Market and the removal of internal frontiers, there will be an increase in the transfer of information between administrations in the different Member States. These will be faced with an increasing number of situations where they will need advanced language tools in order to make communication with their counterparts in other Member States easier and cheaper. Transferring the experience acquired by the European institutions in the processing of multilingualism to the administrations in the Member States and sharing the language resources which each produces can help achieve economies of scale and reduce the cost of multilingual communication.

The aim of this action line is to encourage cooperation between administrations in the Member States and the European institutions in order to reduce the cost of multilingual communication in the European public sector in particular by using advanced language tools. In this way, the European institutions can act as powerful catalysts for the development of the European language industry in the form of a public demand based on common standards or technical specifications.

3.1. The long-term goal is the provision of an efficient multilingual processing service which satisfies the requirements of the institutions and the administrative services concerned in the Member States. This will favour the establishment of an infrastructure enabling each party to use the different linguistic tools available in the Community institutions and the different administrations without any loss of their current functions, whilst encouraging convergence in future developments. Calls for tender will be issued for the development of tools and systems which help reduce translation time by making it easier to locate and reuse texts or sections of documents which have already been translated, as well as on access to terminological databanks. Particular attention will also be devoted to tools and applications which make the task of interpreting easier.

3.2. Work will continue on shared-cost cooperation projects conducted with certain Member States in order to improve terminological tools and existing computer-assisted translation systems, and will be extended to include other interested Member States.

3.3. A special effort will be made to bring the language tools for the new official Community languages up to the level of the others.

4. Accompanying measures

Achieving the multilingual information society calls for the devising of converging strategies on the part of the public authorities, associations and institutions working to develop language resources and tools, the experimental users and the market operators producing and disseminating the information services or providing language processing tools, services and systems. To help in this, the Commission will carry out the following accompanying measures:

- organizing concertation and coordination between the principal operators involved in developing a multilingual information society,

- assessing progress made towards multilingual information society, and identifying remaining barriers,

- promoting technical standards which meet the linguistic needs of users,

- launching promotional activities and user awareness campaigns and supporting the exchange of best practice,

- exploring the possibilities for fruitful collaboration with third countries and multilingual international organizations.

ANNEX II

PROCEDURES FOR IMPLEMENTING THE PROGRAMME

1. The Commission shall implement the programme in accordance with the technical specifications set out in Annex I.

2. Where appropriate, the action lines in the programme shall be carried out by means of shared-cost projects, except in the case of developments exclusively for the institutions of the EU, in which case the rate may be up to 100 %. The Community's financial contribution will not normally be more than 50 % of the cost of the projects, this proportion decreasing the closer the project is to being marketed. Universities and other institutes which do not have cost accounting systems shall be reimbursed at 100 % of their additional costs.

3. The selection of shared-cost projects is, in principle, based on the normal procedure for calls for proposals published in the Official Journal of the European Communities. The objectives shall be set out in work plans compiled in close cooperation with the market operators and the committee referred to in Article 4 of the Decision.

4. In exceptional cases, having received the opinion of the committee referred to in Article 4, the Commission may consider proposals for projects which have not been requested but which might involve particularly promising and important developments for achieving the objectives of the programme and which could not be submitted under the normal procedure for calls for proposals.

5. Support for attempts to construct an infrastructure for European linguistic resources could take the form of concerted actions to coordinate the development of multilingual linguistic resources, particularly through 'concertation networks`. The Community's financial contribution could cover up to 100 % of the coordinating costs.

6. Projects financed entirely by the Commission under study and service contracts shall be implemented through a call for tenders in accordance with the Commission's financial regulations. Transparency will be ensured by the publication and regular dissemination of the work programme to professional associations and other interested bodies.

7. To implement the programme, the Commission shall also carry out activities drawn up in accordance with the general objectives of the programme and the specific aims of each action line. Such activities shall include workshops, seminars, conferences, studies, publications, awareness campaigns, training courses, participation in cooperative projects with the administrations in the Member States, the European institutions and international organizations, helping national language observatories and specific support for the development of language tools and resources for those Community languages most in need of such assistance.