MEPs back call for EU language change

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According to EUPolitix, the leaders of the parliament?s two biggest political groups are backing calls for German to be used on all future EU presidency websites.

European ombudsman Nikiforos Diamandouros announced on Monday that presidency websites should be available not only in English and French, but also in German and, possibly, other languages.

MEP's Martin Schulz and Hans-Gert Poettering both back this idea, argueing ?German may not be understood by everyone but it is worth remembering that it is the language spoken by the biggest share of the EU?s population? and "[we] would welcome any extra languages, especially German which is the majority language in the EU, being added to the presidency websites.?

While inside EU-Institutions the call for a further extension of the language service is discussed the private sector backed by EU commissioner Charly McGreevy recently recently called for a reduction of the language burden, especially in the patent application system. Currently, all EU-wide patents require translation into all official languages of the EU.

In January 2007 Irish(Gaelic), Romanian and Bulgarian are added to the 20 official EU-languages. The EU annually requires a budget of close to one billion Euro (1.3b US$ ) to manage translation and interpretation services.

Sources:

EUPolitix.com

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