Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-25-Speech-4-216"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20080925.22.4-216"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Madam President, as a member of the Committee on Culture, allow me to extend my warm welcome to the initiative of Erna Hennicot-Schoepges and Katerina Batzeli, members of the Committee on Culture, to address an oral question to the European Commission and have this debate on the progress of the reform of the European schools.
Speaking of multilingualism and its importance, let me use this opportunity to raise a serious concern we have in Romania, where the recent initiative of the Ministry of Regional Development to complete the translation of the EU’s regional operational programme from Romanian into Hungarian met serious attacks from the Romanian Social Democratic Party run by several leaders of the former communist regime. Please note that this is happening in one of the 27 EU Member States in the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, at a time when Commissioner Leonard Orban issued a policy document entitled, ‘Multilingualism: an asset for Europe and a shared commitment’. In the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, a debate on the reform of the European Schools could not be of greater importance, as we live in a multicultural and multilingual Europe, where different cultures and languages coexist. We need to encourage and enable such cultural interaction for successful European integration.
Therefore, our European educational system needs to reflect this multicultural characteristic and allow a healthy and easy coexistence. European schools in particular were set up to meet these needs – to provide multicultural and multilingual education while also strengthening European identity. However, in an enlarged EU with greater citizen mobility and more agencies being created in different Member States, it has become a challenge to meet these needs. As the questions in today’s debate underline, there is a great need to focus on reforms, as it has proved to be more and more complex to provide multilingual and flexible education of high quality.
Allow me to stress the fact that only by allowing students to express and practice their own cultural identity and use their own mother tongue throughout their education and formation can we allow them to evolve as true European citizens. If students studying in European Schools are not able first to develop their national identity through the use of their mother tongue and culture, I believe that they will not have a strong basis to build their European identity.
Thank you for your attention and I wish you good luck in the reform process of the European Schools."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples