WRITTEN QUESTION E-1532/02 by Giovanni Pittella (PSE) to the Council. Hesse law against bilingualism.
Date: 2002-06-03
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Hesse, child of migrant, competence of the Member States, education policy, equal treatment, integration of migrants, language teaching, linguistic discrimination

C 309 E/132

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

12.12.2002

(2002/C 309 E/156)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-1532/02

by Giovanni Pittella (PSE) to the Council

(3 June 2002)

Subject: Hesse law against bilingualism

Knowing that:

(cid:1) 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;

(cid:1) 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;

(cid:1) 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;

(cid:1) 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’;

(cid:1) 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;

(cid:1) 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.