WRITTEN QUESTION E-0075/02 by Maurizio Turco (NI) to the Commission. JICS (Joint Interpreting and Conference Service) working group for the use of the international language — Esperanto.
Date: 2002-01-25
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: conference proceedings, interpreting, official language

18.7.2002

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 172 E/137

Answer given by Mr Fischler on behalf of the Commission

(18 February 2002)

The budget appropriations for school milk in a given budget year are based on the estimated expenditure
for that scheme taking account of the quantities of dairy products distributed in previous years and,
eventually, of developments in the aid level. It concerns a global amount for the Community as a whole,
without any specification of budgetary envelopes per individual Member State. Actual expenditure on the
scheme depends upon the quantities effectively distributed in each Member State. The budgetary
framework therefore does not allow for the type of compensatory allocations suggested by the Honourable
Member.

Moreover, the aid amount per unit of product distributed to schoolchildren should be known at the
moment of distribution with a view to setting the net selling price. For this reason, the Community
legislation provides for a fixed amount of subsidy for the different products distributed.

(2002/C 172 E/141)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0075/02

by Maurizio Turco (NI) to the Commission

(25 January 2002)

Subject: JICS (Joint Interpreting and Conference Service) working group for the use of the ‘international

language’ / Esperanto

The European Commission, through Vice-President Neil Kinnock, asked the JICS (Joint Interpreting and
Conference Service) to set up a working group to examine projects on the teaching of Esperanto and
consider to what extent it could be used as an intermediary language for interpretation.

In the light of the above:

/ On what date was this request submitted to the JICS? Has the working group been activated? If so,
when? Who are its members and what are their qualifications? On the basis of what criteria were they
selected?

/ Has the group met yet? If so, when? Are there minutes and/or recordings of its meetings? If so, are
these public? What publications and studies has the group taken into consideration (e.g. the study
published by the Italian Ministry of Education in 1995)?

/ What conclusions, if any, has the working group reached? If it has not yet reached any conclusions,

when and how does it intend to do so?

Answer given by Mr Kinnock on behalf of the Commission

(12 March 2002)

The Honourable Member refers to the consideration to be given by the Joint Interpreting and Conference
Service (SCIC) to the possibility of learning and using ‘Esperanto’ as a relay language for conference
interpretation. SCIC has indeed examined this question internally and with a number of its external
partners in university and academic circles.

However, whilst the use of Esperanto as a relay language for interpretation may appear to be attractive at
first sight, closer examination has revealed that
financial and technical
difficulties.

there are serious practical,

The Commission is strongly committed to multilingualism in order to facilitate communication among
delegates at meetings in the framework of Community activity. Accordingly,
it has always sought to
provide interpretation from and into as many languages as are needed in a particular meeting, subject to
budgetary considerations and the availability of interpreters. The use of various relay languages gives the
Commission the necessary flexibility in this respect without having recourse to languages that will not be
used by any of the delegates.

C 172 E/138

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

18.7.2002

As far as SCIC is aware, there are no professionally qualified Esperanto interpreters and educational
institutions in Member States, on which SCIC relies for the provision of courses in interpretation, are
unlikely to include Esperanto among the languages they provide. For logistical and financial reasons SCIC
itself is not in a position to launch a training programme in Esperanto for existing and future interpreters.
Training an interpreter to the required standard in an official language for passive use takes three to four
years of part-time study and costs about € 70 000.

An additional consideration is that about half of the interpretation provided by the Commission is supplied
by freelance interpreters.
if not impossible, to ensure that they learnt
Esperanto, especially as it would be of little practical value for them elsewhere.

It would clearly be difficult,

Furthermore, there is no evidence that using Esperanto as a relay language would lead to an improvement
in the overall quality of interpretation. On the contrary, recourse to a language that is not used in everyday
life would run the risk of not being able to convey the full range of messages and ideas communicated
during meetings.

In line with
There is a shortage of interpreters in many existing and future Community languages.
Commission policy of concentrating resources on core activities, SCIC’s immediate priority is to ensure
that an adequate number of interpreters is available in these languages, particularly those of the candidate
countries and has initiated a series of action plans committed to achieving this goal.

This position does not of course detract from the interest Esperanto may represent for purposes other than
interpretation.

(2002/C 172 E/142)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0076/02

by Camilo Nogueira Román (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(25 January 2002)

Subject: Statements by the Commission President in Madrid

The Spanish newspapers have recently published such headlines as ‘Prodi defends Aznar’s right to deny the
regions representation in Europe’ and ‘Prodi supports the Government and says the regions will not be
represented in the EU’, in the wake of President Prodi’s reported position on the current controversy within
the Spanish state, where the central government, with the Prime Minister at the forefront, is refusing the
regions the right to be represented at meetings of the Council of Ministers, even though this right is laid
down in the Treaty of Amsterdam and is recognised in practice by other Member States.

Has Mr Prodi taken such a position in reality? If so, on what grounds is he entering a controversy in which
the nationalities and regions of the Spanish state are simply defending their constitutional rights / rights
which are in any case validated by the EU Treaties?

Answer given by Mr Prodi on behalf of the Commission

(26 February 2002)

The Commission recalls that the President of the Commission committed himself to involve more the
regional and local
in EU policy shaping and implementation, as stated in the White Paper on
Governance (1). Furthermore, the President underlined that the participation of Members of the Committee
of Regions in the Convention will allow them to contribute to the debate on the future of Europe.

level,