WRITTEN QUESTION E-0503/03 by Joan Vallvé (ELDR) to the Commission. Catalan on the Commission's website.
Date: 2003-02-21
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Catalonia, EU institution, Internet site, enlargement of the Union, official language, use of languages

C 280 E/58

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

21.11.2003

(2003/C 280 E/060)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0503/03

by Joan Vallvé (ELDR) to the Commission

(21 February 2003)

Subject: Catalan on the Commission’s website

Paragraph 4 of Parliament’s resolution of 11 December 1990 on languages in the Community and the
situation of Catalan (1) called on the Commission to take action to guarantee, inter alia, the use of Catalan
for disseminating public information concerning the European institutions in all the media.

It should be borne in mind that Parliament’s website is already available in the 12 languages of the
candidate countries for enlargement (in addition to the 11 current official languages), and that many of
these languages are less widely spoken than other languages of the European Union. This is the case with
Catalan, which is an official language of three regions with legislative powers and more than 11 million
inhabitants and which is spoken by 8 million people, placing it in front of Swedish, Finnish, Danish,
Bulgarian, Slovene, Slovak, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian and Maltese and making it comparable, as far as
Europe is concerned, to Portuguese or Czech.

Catalan belongs to a group of European languages which are official languages in their respective regions
of the Member States but which receive no official recognition at EU level.

the Commission introduce these languages on its website,

Will
Parliament’s resolution?

in line with the request made in

(1) OJ C 19, 28.1.1991, p. 42.

Answer given by Mr Prodi on behalf of the Commission

(7 March 2003)

Since the Union’s Europa website was launched in 1995, the Commission has applied the general principle
of publishing material in electronic form in all the Union’s official languages.

In addition to official documents, Europa (http://europa.eu.int) makes a large amount of non-official
information available to the general public. Here,
to technical
constraints and human and budgetary resources, is to maximise efforts in order that the general public can
access the official language of its choice. This objective will still be a priority for the next enlargement.

the Commission’s objective, subject

It is for the Member States to decide on its official languages.

(2003/C 280 E/061)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0506/03

by Salvador Garriga Polledo (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(21 February 2003)

Subject: Understanding package leaflets

In view of the recommendations heard in television commercials concerning the necessary precautions
when taking the pharmaceutical products being advertised, it is surprising that in many EU Member States
the package leaflets accompanying medicinal products are published only in the language of the country of
consumption.

This prevents citizens of other EU countries who for whatever reason (work, tourism, etc.) are in a country
other
than their home country from being able to understand the explanations given by such
pharmaceutical package leaflets, particularly as regards contra-indications.