WRITTEN QUESTION E-1081/04 by Maria Sanders-ten Holte (ELDR) to the Commission. The smaller European Schools.
Date: 2004-04-06
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: European school, accession to the European Union, administrative expenditure (EU), educational administration, educational exchange, organisation of teaching

C 88 E/722

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

8.4.2004

to the European Parliament (364/2000), which was registered on 25 May 2000 and last discussed by the
Committee on Petitions on 20 February 2003. The Committee is still awaiting the information requested
from the relevant authorities in Germany.

Over the four years since the petition was submitted and during which the road S 282 A was completed,
an increasing number of conflicting pieces of information have come to light.

Firstly, contradictory statements have been made with regard to the cost.

In a letter of 23 May 2003 to Mr Nino Gemelli (Chairman of the Committee on Petitions), the German
ambassador Dr Schönfelder (Permanent Representation of Germany to the EU) confirmed that
the
extension of the road S 282 A would cost EUR 50 million, referring to information from German
authorities.

In a letter of 19 May 2003 to Mr Iltgen, President of Saxony’s state parliament, the total cost of
constructing the road was estimated by Saxony’s State Minister of Economic Affairs and Labour at
EUR 4,63 million. Just a few weeks later (on 4 July 2003), in reply to the same question, the Minister
informed Mr Iltgen that the cost would be only EUR 4,3 million.

In addition, it is suspected that the reconstruction of the road S 282 A was intentionally declared to be an
‘extension’ although this was not the case, as only one year after the road was completed it was
downgraded from the original
to the ‘regional’ category
(classification III).

‘supraregional’ category (classification II)

Can the Commission state whether and to what extent it is aware of these conflicting facts and, if it is not
aware of them, whether it intends to carry out on-the-spot investigations?

Supplementary answer
given by Mr Barrot on behalf of the Commission

(28 June 2004)

According to the information which the Commission received from the management authority on
16 April 2004 in Saxony, the situation of European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) investments in
the project quoted by the Honourable Member is as follows.

The street, Staatsstraße 282 A, has been reconstructed with support from the ERDF. The planning
envisaged a total cost of EUR 9,081 million. Up to now EUR 5,3 million has been spent with some
EUR 0,705 million to follow. The ERDF is contributing 75 % of the total cost.

The Commission is informed that inconsistencies might have arisen in the presentation of the figures
regarding this project because they were given at different points in time and relate therefore to the
situation at different stages of implementation.

As regards the change in grade of the street, the programme management authority has informed the
Commission that the street in question was upgraded from local level in 1997 to state level. It has not
been downgraded.

(2004/C 88 E/0743)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-1081/04

by Maria Sanders-ten Holte (ELDR) to the Commission

(6 April 2004)

Subject: The smaller European Schools

In its resolution of 17 December 2002, the European Parliament stated that the European Schools foster a
sense of European identity and European integration. Yet various smaller European Schools are threatened
with closure. The European Parliament also took the view that ways of cooperating (inter alia financially)
with local, regional or national authorities should be explored, in which connection linguistic diversity
should remain a priority.

8.4.2004

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Official Journal of the European Union

C 88 E/723

In May 2003, the Board of Governors of the European Schools set up working parties to examine the
viability of each of the small schools.

Have the working parties completed their examination and drawn up final reports? If not, why is the

1.
Commission now already proposing that the European subsidy to the schools be reduced?

2. What is the Commission’s view of the possibility of making the European Baccalaureate available to
far more pupils by means of cooperation with local, regional or national schools and by admitting more
outside pupils to the European School?

3.
The forthcoming enlargement of the EU will put a lot of pressure on the principle of teaching in
the
pupils’ mother tongue at
distinguishing features of these schools), because at the small schools in particular there would be too few
pupils to permit a separate language section to be set up or because the infrastructure does not allow it.
How will the Commission guarantee mother-tongue teaching in future?

the European Schools (which,

it should not be forgotten,

is one of

4. Will the Commission encourage the Member States to second a mother tongue language teacher for
those languages for which no separate language section has been or is to be set up?

Answer given by Mr Kinnock on behalf of the Commission

(30 April 2004)

The budgetary process to which the Honourable Member refers is the same irrespective of the size of a
European School. During the meeting of the Administrative and Financial Committee of the Board of
Governors held at the end of March 2004, the draft budgets for 2005 for each European School were
unanimously agreed upon, with the agreement of the Director of each European School. The amount of
subsidy requested from the EU budget was communicated to the Commission, and this amount will be
submitted by the Commission to the budgetary authority.

The reports of the Working Groups concerning the long-term viability of the small European Schools were
not connected to the 2005 draft budget, but were presented as a distinct issue to the Board of Governors
meeting at the end of January 2004. Given the apparent lack of innovative and workable alternatives, in
particular in relation to cooperation with local, regional or national schools, the Working Groups were
given a last opportunity to further enrich their report, and to present a revised version at the meeting of
the Board of Governors to be held at the end of April 2004.

On the subject of the wider availability of the European Baccalaureate in schools other than European
Schools, the Commission is actively participating in a Working Group of the Board of Governors
examining the feasibility and modalities of this proposal. However, the Commission does not consider that
admitting more outside pupils to the highly subsidised European Schools is an appropriate means of
opening up the European Baccalaureate. The Honourable Member will also realise that, since national
education systems remain within the competence of Member States, the Commission has no effective
power of initiative in this area.

The Commission agrees with the Honourable Member that the linguistic diversity of the forthcoming
enlargement will put pressure on mother tongue teaching in the European Schools. The criteria established
by the Board of Governors in October 2002 relating to numbers of pupils necessary to open a new
language section justify the opening of Polish, Hungarian and Czech sections in Brussels and Luxembourg
as of September 2004. However, the European Schools are recruiting both full-time and part-time teachers
to provide mother tongue teaching to children of EU staff of other nationalities who are without a
language section.