Business Platform for Multilingualism

Invited by the European Commission, EUCA entered the new Business Platform for Multilingualism in September 2009.

The Platform was launched by the DG Education and Culture with the scope of consulting representatives of the educational and business at EU level (European associations) on matters related to the ways of developing multilingualism in the business environment, as a mean to improve the competitiveness of EU companies and the know-how and qualifications of human resources. This Platform is the first concrete product of the recent strategy “Multilingualism: an asset for Europe and a shared commitment”, launched by the EU on September 2008.

The Platform is composed of 21 European association, both the educational and business sector, based in different countries and having members in the whole EU. The first meeting was chaired by the Commissioner on languages, Mr. Leonard Orban, and was attended by the Director General of Education and Culture, Mrs. Odile Quintin.

The purpose of the Platform – that is independent by the Commission – is to exchange ideas and suggestions among the members in order to deliver an advice to the Commission on how multilingualism should be improved in the coming years. This advice will be taken into consideration in the drafting of the Recommendation on multilingualism that the EU will publish in 2011 and that will be addressed to the Member States.

Another major objective is to give advice on the Commission on the future funding programmes after 2013 related to languages and multilingualism.

The Commission will also consult, on separate Platforms, the Member States. Some possible joint events between this Platform and representatives of the Member States may be organized in the future.

The platform is composed of three panels:

• Research
• Technical
• Marketing/Communication

Each one delegated to discuss specific topics. All the members are distributed among the 3 panels. EUCA has chosen to be member of the panel “Marketing and Communication”, charged of consulting stakeholders (ie: colleges) and to do awareness raising activities. But now it is also collaborating in the "Research" panel.

The Platform is chaired by Mr. Wolfgang Mackiewicz, appointed by the other members, who represents the European Language Council.

From the Platform was born the EU project "CELAN - Network for the promotion of language strategies for competitiveness and employability", aimed at documenting in detail the actual linguistic needs of companies and employees, and at assessing to what extent these needs are satisfied by current language provision across different sectors and Member States. 

In July 2011 the Platform has published its first report of activities  2009-2011 (see the attachment below).

For details about the first steps of the initiative see: http://ec.europa.eu/education/languages/news/news3639_en.htm

To follow it see: http://ec.europa.eu/education/languages/languages-of-europe/doc4015_en.htm