English

1.      The European Federation of National Institutions for Language (EFNIL) acknowledges that language competence and communication skills are increasingly key factors for business and commerce in Europe and the world.

2.      EFNIL urges greater collaboration between the European Union and the Member States in the development of policies that address this challenge. These should include as action points:

·         to raise awareness of the importance of languages and language skills as factors for success or failure within the business environment;

·         to encourage and finance the development of tools for language processing and language learning within the business environment;

·         to encourage and finance the development of specific learning programmes for the effective use of languages in business, especially favouring less widely used languages;

·         to support scientific research, especially into the factors which determine how languages and language skills contribute to the process of value creation.

3.      Policy actions and measures should pay due attention to the importance of:

·         national language skills as key factors in business communication (and not only foreign language skills);

·         all European languages as instruments for localisation (and not only the larger ones);

·         the languages of foreign markets outside Europe, stimulating also reciprocity, i.e. that non-European business should pay comparable attention to European languages;

·         the language competence of migrant workers;

·         domain- and task-specific (foreign) language competence as integral parts of professional training and education;

·         translation (both human and automated) and terminology work as an indispensable aid to localisation and adaptation to foreign markets and their customers.

4.      EFNIL urges the European Commission to establish a Europe-wide information and documentation service for both companies and public administrators and to promote best practice.

5.      It is EFNIL’s view that the issue of language use in business should not be considered exclusively from the point of view of free trade but also from the perspective of consumers’ and workers’ rights, thus allowing for social considerations such as equal opportunities, the danger of social discrimination against less highly educated citizens and the efficient dissemination of information. Therefore EFNIL urges the European Union to offer more opportunities for regulation by Member States in favour of their own language(s) in order to guarantee sufficient social equality.

6.      EFNIL offers its expertise to assist policy makers in the development and monitoring of policies in this field and to ensure that national and regional circumstances and sensibilities are duly taken into account.