WRITTEN QUESTION P-4088/98

by Luciana Castellina (GUE/NGL) to the Council

(4 January 1999)

Subject: Future of the language sections in the European Schools

The next meeting of the Board of Governors of the European Schools, which will be held in Brussels in January 1999, is due to take a decision on the request made by the Italian Government, on 5 July 1998, for the creation of a third Italian language section in the European Schools in Brussels. It is also due to respond to the invitation issued by the Italian Government to a seminar to reflect on the future of, and a renewed role for, the European Schools.

In view of the fact that the creation and maintenance of language sections are currently not governed by objective and transparent criteria (as demonstrated by the decisions of the Board of Governors taken in April 1998 in Copenhagen, which led to certain language sections being created and a refusal to create others), and bearing in mind the importance of tackling the problem as soon as possible, particularly in view of the forthcoming enlargements, does the Council intend to act to help defend the plurality of languages and cultures in the European Schools and to further the process of reflection on their future and renewing their role?

Reply

(22 April 1999)

The Council recalls that the European Schools have been established on the basis of the Convention defining the statute of the European Schools, adopted in 1957, to which the Member States only (and not the European Community) are contracting parties. Moreover the new Convention signed by the European Community and the Member States on 21 June 1994, which, inter alia, modified the decision-making procedure within the organs of the Schools, has not yet been ratified by all the signatories and is consequently not yet in force.

The Council attaches great importance to the plurality of languages and cultures within the European Schools, which is enshrined in the Convention, but would remind the Honourable Member that this is a matter for all the parties to the 1957 Convention.

Decisions concerning educational matters within the Schools fall to the Board of Governors of the Schools, on which each Member State and the Commission is represented, and it is therefore the Board that determines questions relating to the language sections.

As the Honourable Member will be aware, certain organisational questions relating to the European Schools were raised at the last Education Council meeting, on 4 December 1998. The definition of objective and transparent criteria for the language sections and the opening and closing of the European Schools was raised, as was the importance of ensuring a proper balance between the number of language sections and the number of students.

The Council stresses that any consideration of the matter would be without prejudice to the Convention in force as well as the process of ratification of the 1994 Convention, and in particular to the competence of the Board of Governors.

In this context, the Presidency, in consultation with the Council bodies which have examined this question, has taken the initiative of issuing an invitation to the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the European Schools to inform the Ministers meeting with the Council, by the end of the year, of the outcome of the discussions which are being held on improving the organisation of the European Schools.