WRITTEN QUESTION E-0658/98 by Marianne Thyssen (PPE) to the Commission (10 March 1998)

Subject: Educational and information materials for primary and secondary schools in the European Union

Can the Commission state what percentage of the money it spends on informing European citizens of the European Union is specifically devoted to expenditure aimed at schoolchildren (primary and secondary schools)?

Can the Commission also indicate what percentage of the abovementioned expenditure is devoted to information and educational materials for primary school pupils?

Finally, can the Commission provide a breakdown of the information and educational materials it has produced since 1 January 1995 (the most recent enlargement of the European Union) for, and distributed to, primary schools and whether each of these materials is also available in the Dutch language?

Answer given by Mrs Cresson on behalf on the Commission (28 April 1998)

Various Community programmes contribute to the information of European citizens. Some of these programmes are broad and touch all sectors of society. Others are more specific and target one specific group. Information actions for schoolchildren are present within various European programmes, from the programmes in the environmental sector to the campaign which accompanies the introduction of the euro.

The largest programme for European cooperation in education is the Socrates programme. The Commission implements Europe-wide cooperation activities in the field of education as envisaged in Article 126 of the EC Treaty and on the basis of Decision No 819/95/EC of the Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 1995 establishing the Community action plan Socrates ((OJ L 87, 20.4.1995. )). The budget of the Socrates programme was established in the decision at 850 MECU for the five year period 1 January 1995 - 31 December 1999 and was raised to 920 MECU at the end of 1997.

Chapter II of the Socrates programme comprises actions addressed to the school education sector under the heading of Comenius. The decision provides that no less than 10% of the overall budget available for Socrates should be committed in the framework of school education. In 1998 it is envisaged that more than 15% of the Socrates budget will be spent for the school education chapter. All actions and projects under Comenius aim at raising awareness of issues of European significance and a large percentage of such projects result in the production of educational materials.

It has to be stressed however that programmes and actions aimed at schools are implemented according to the principle of subsidiarity and 'fully respecting the responsibility of the Member States for the content of teaching and the organisation of educational systems' as envisaged in Article 126 of the EC Treaty. As a result, the Commission does not have a centralised policy for the production and dissemination of information and educational materials but rather supports and contributes to the efforts of national authorities. It is difficult to give precise figures as the distribution of information often falls within other cooperative activities. It is not therefore possible to isolate the specific amounts spent on information.

The Commission has a policy of translating documents of a certain level of importance into all the official Community languages.