By Chris Jones - 31st October 2006
Brussels has refuted claims that the language portfolio of Romania’s EU commissioner is a snub to the new member state.
Leonard Orban, Romania’s Europe integration minister, was confirmed as Bucharest’s new candidate for the commission post on Monday after the first choice, senator Varujan Vosganian, withdrew his candidacy.
Both commission president José Manuel Barroso and the European parliament – both of which must endorse any new commission candidates – had expressed their concerns about Vosganian’s links to business and his lack of European credentials.
But Barroso’s decision to give Orban, who speaks Romanian and English but can also understand French and Italian, the multilingualism portfolio has been seen by some as a snub to Bucharest over the poor choice of candidate.
Bulgaria’s new commissioner, Meglena Kuneva, was given the considerably more substantial consumer protection portfolio by Barroso last week.
But a European commission spokeswoman denied that multilingualism was not an important dossier.
“This is a major and important portfolio, one that is at the heart of the EU’s values,” she said, adding that it would be key to communicating the “EU’s linguistic and cultural diversity”.
She added that Barroso had discussed Orban’s candidacy with Bucharest prior to his nomination, and that the question of which portfolio he would be given had also been mentioned.
“The commission president believes that the commissioner designate is the best man for the job, with a European track record and the necessary political and technical expertise.”
But she refused to comment on why Orban had been given the multilingualism dossier ahead of either justice or immigration, both of which are currently managed by Italian commissioner Franco Frattini.
These two portfolios are held by separate ministers in the vast majority of EU member states, and one of the new commissioners had been widely expected to shoulder some of Frattini’s workload.
The spokeswoman also denied that the post – which will see Orban take responsibility for three separate commission departments on translation, interpretation and official publications, covering 3400 employees – would be more administrative than political.
“The portfolio reflects the growing importance of multilingualism within the EU, and is certainly no less important than any other portfolio.”
She also denied that Jan Figel, the commissioner currently responsible for multilingualism as part of the broader culture and education dossier, denied that the decision implied that the Slovak had failed to give enough importance to the issue.
Figel was the first commissioner to be given a multilingualism remit, a move considered necessary with the addition of nine new languages following the 2004 enlargement.
The Slovak commissioner published a communication in November 2005 stressing the importance of multilingualism in an enlarged EU, and in particular the role it plays in ensuring that the European institutions can communicate effectively with citizens.
The paper urged all member states to push for a so-called ‘one plus two’ approach for language learning – all school children should be encouraged to learn their mother tongue plus two other languages.
Orban will now also be responsible for the high-level group of independent experts on multilingualism, set up by Figel in November last year to help assess the progress made by member states and to provide fresh ideas, support and advice in future initiatives.
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