WRITTEN QUESTION E-1533/02

by Giovanni Pittella (PSE) to the Commission

(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 Commission 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?

Answer given by Mrs Reding on behalf of the Commission

(23 July 2002)

The Commission has repeatedly emphasised that it considers that the knowledge of languages is an enriching factor not only for personal development but also for European society as a whole.

As previously stated in the reply to the Honourable Member's written question E-1336/02(1), the Commission fully acknowledges the problems linked to the teaching of migrant workers' children and actively strives to tackle these problems in co-operation with the Member States.

Regarding the draft legislation of the German federal state of Hessen to which the Honourable Member refers, the Commission would underline that it does not wish to comment on draft legislation which has not yet been adopted and which is not yet in force.

However, in this context, the Commission recalls the provisions of Article 149 paragraph 1 of the EC Treaty, which states that:

The Community shall contribute to the development of quality education by encouraging co-operation 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 C 277 E, 14.11.2002, p. 189.