WRITTEN QUESTION E-1532/02

by Giovanni Pittella (PSE) to the Council

(3 June 2002)

Subject: Hesse law against bilingualism

Knowing that:

- in force in the German Land of Hesse is a law which was adopted on 17 June 1992 by the SPD-Grüne government for the purpose of maintaining standards in schools. Amongst other things, that law has served to promote bilingualism;

- a new law has recently been proposed which will have the effect of depriving foreign children of the right to preserve their language of origin and under which their mother tongue and their potential bilingualism will cease to be regarded as a resource to be exploited;

- notwithstanding authoritative studies which demonstrate how important maintaining the language and the culture of origin is to personal development and to the integration process, the Hesse government wishes the countries of origin to assume financial responsibility for the task. This would place an excessive financial and organisational burden on consular representatives, lower the prestige of the languages concerned and weaken the legal position of those languages in schools;

- at the Convention on integration and opportunities for immigrants in Hesse which the government organised on 26 November 2001 in Wiesbaden, the Chief Minister, Mr Koch, said: We are in Germany. Here, there is only one language: German. At home, foreign families can speak whatever language they like but, in the street and at school, German alone will be spoken. Only this will lead to integration;

- the new law would lead to serious problems: if children were required to learn German before starting school, foreign parents would be blamed for any failure by their children to learn the language. However, immigrant families often lack money with which to pay for language courses;

- furthermore, the draft law in question would infringe Council Directive 77/486/EEC of 7 July 1977 and also the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights.

Will the Council do all it can to prevent the adoption of a law which blatantly contravenes European legislation and the German Constitution itself and which is likely to result in a long legal and political dispute?

Reply

(8 October 2002)

The Council would point out that it does not comment on draft legislation within Member States. As far as compliance with Council Directive of 25 July 1977 on the education of the children of migrant workers(1) is concerned, is for the European Commission to ensure that, in accordance with Article 211 of the Treaty the provisions of this Treaty and the measures taken by the institutions pursuant thereto are applied

The Council would recall that the provisions of the Directive in question have to be seen in conjunction with Article 149 paragraph 1 of the Treaty, which states that The Community shall contribute to the development of quality education by encouraging cooperation between Member States and, if necessary, by supporting and supplementing their action, while fully respecting the responsibility of Member States for the content of teaching and the organisation of education systems and their cultural and linguistic diversity.

(1) OJ L 199, 6.8.1977.