WRITTEN QUESTION E-1418/02 by Bart Staes (Verts/ALE) to the Commission. Use of languages in report on undeclared labour in Europe.
Date: 2002-05-23
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: dissemination of EU information, moonlighting, official language, report, use of languages

17.4.2003

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 92 E/53

How many investigations are still in progress?

Can the Commission supply similar figures for the other 14 EU Member States?

Answer given by Mr Monti on behalf of the Commission

(27 June 2002)

In response to the increasing number of information requests, the Commission launched two new State aid
transparency tools in 2001.

The first is a State aid Register which provides access to detailed information of all Commission State aid
decisions. It provides for each Member State the type of aid, an indication whether the case is an individual
aid or a scheme, the objective of the aid and its form, the sectors covered by the aid, the duration of the
scheme and the type of Commission decision (positive, negative or conditional decision etc). It also
contains links to press releases and the texts of State aid decisions that are currently published in the
Official Journal.

The second instrument is the State aid Scoreboard which is updated twice a year. It is divided into four
parts: Part One looks at the extent to which Member States are reducing their State aid relative to the gross
domestic product (GDP). Part Two focuses on Member States’ relative success in redirecting aid from
specific sectors to horizontal objectives. Part Three contains data on State aid control procedures of both
the Commission and the Member States while Part Four examines the role of State aid in the context of the
internal market.

Both tools may be accessed online at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/competition/index_en.html

(2003/C 92 E/054)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-1418/02

by Bart Staes (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(23 May 2002)

Subject: Use of languages in report on undeclared labour in Europe

On 26 February 2002 the Commission published a report on undeclared labour in Europe. It has been
placed on the official website, Europa, only in English, with brief summaries in German and French.

Why did the Commission opt for these three languages?

Will it have the report translated into all the official languages of the Union?

Will the Commission in future ensure that the documents which it disseminates via the official European
website are translated into the 11 official languages of the Union?

Does the Commission still consider it vital, as it has previously observed, that citizens of the Union should
be able to read the texts adopted at Union level in their own language (see http://www.europa.eu.int/
comm/role_nl.htm#5)?

Does the Commission agree that this limited choice of languages constitutes a violation of Article 21,
Chapter III, of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union?

Answer given by Mr Prodi on behalf of the Commission

(3 July 2002)

The publication of documents adopted by the Commission is foreseen in the eleven official languages of
the Union. This is notably the case for COM documents, which contain the Commission’s legislative
proposals, and other communications of general
interest that are due to be transmitted to the other
institutions.

C 92 E/54

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

17.4.2003

This principle is also applied for electronic publication: official documents of the Commission published
on the Europa web-site are provided in the eleven official languages.

The report ‘Undeclared labour in Europe. Towards an integrated approach of combating undeclared labour’
does not constitute a document adopted by the Commission, but is a final report of an external study
containing specialised information.

Thus, it has been published on the Europa website in its original language (English), together with a brief
summary in French and German.

It is, therefore, not the intention of the Commission to translate the report, which numbers 158 pages in
total, into the other official languages.

The Commission certainly considers it to be of the utmost importance to ensure that citizens of the Union
should be able to read the texts adopted at Union level in their own language and, as stated above, this it
strives to do. However, it is not possible to translate reports of external studies such as the report in
question. The publication of this report is a tangible proof of the Commission’s commitment to be
transparent and to make information public, including reports of external studies.

(2003/C 92 E/055)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-1420/02

by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(23 May 2002)

Subject: Abolition of multi-year fixed interest rates for loans to home-owners (cid:1) an unintended side-effect

of new book-keeping rules

1.
Is the Commission aware that many people are only able to become owner-occupiers with the aid of
mortgage loans, which entail paying regular instalments of interest on a loan equivalent to the value of the
home or part of it?

2.
Can the Commission confirm that, as from 2005, the proposals for International Accounting
Standards will require European businesses and banks to record their assets annually at the market value
which obtains at the time (‘fair value’), for which purpose they will also constantly have to reassess their
mortgage portfolios in such a way that the value of fixed-interest mortgage claims will fall if interest rates
rise?

3.
As a result of this annual reassessment, is there a danger that in future mortgage loans will no longer
be made available at interest rates fixed for a relatively large number of years, because fluctuations in value
will result in fluctuations in profits, so that banks will no longer see any advantage in concluding fixed-
interest mortgage loan agreements?

4. What consequences is it likely to have if all or most mortgage loans are subject to variable interest
rates, so that the amounts which home-owners have to pay are liable to change radically from year to
year? Is this likely to discourage people from buying their own homes, to reduce the purchasing power
available for the acquisition of other goods, or to increase the number of bankruptcies because many
people will be unable to bear the risks of annual fluctuations?

5.
Are the new rules likely to create a situation in which businesses will continue to offer fixed-interest
mortgage loans because there is a demand for them, but the value of these mortgages will be determined
by a futures/options market, as a result of which the overheads on mortgage portfolio management will
increase?

6.
Is it desirable to protect those who are compelled to pay rent against the adverse consequences of
annual fluctuations and also to avoid other types of rise in costs to consumers? How can this be achieved?

Source: De Volkskrant (Dutch daily newspaper), 15 and 16 April 2002.