European Commissioner for Multilingualism

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Incumbent: Leonard Orban
European Commissioner of Multilingualism
Commission emblem

Inaugural	Leonard Orban
Formation	2007
Website	http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/orban/index_en.htm

The European Commissioner for Multilingualism is a member of the European Commission. The current commissioner is Leonard Orban.

The portfolio is responsible for language policy of the European Union, i.e. promoting multilingualism for the citizens and the institutions of the European Union. It was created on January 1, 2007 during the Barroso Commission.

1 Responsibilities
2 Current commissioner
3 List of commissioners
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Responsibilities

Politically, the portfolio is mainly focused on promoting foreign languages learning as means for worker’s mobility and business competitiveness rather than emphasizing language rights of speakers of regional, minority, lesser-used and migrant languages. Commissioner for Multilingualism is also responsible, alongside the President of the Commission, Barroso, and the European Commissioner for Education, Training and Culture, Ján Figeľ to work on “intercultural dialogue”, including the 2008 European Year of Intercultural Dialogue.

Administratively, Commissioner for Multilingualism is in charge of the Directorate-General for Translation, the DG for Interpretation and the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, as well as for the Multilingualism policy unit (EAC-C-5) in the DG for Education and Culture, with 3,400 staff in total - about 15 per cent of the Brussels executive's workforce- and with about 1 percent of the EU budget.

[edit] Current commissioner

The post was created in January 1, 2007, in the enlarged Barroso Commission after the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the European Union. Previously, multilingualism was a responsibility of the European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Multilingualism (held by Ján Figeľ between 2004 and 2007).

Priorities of Orban in multilingualism are;

Encourage language learning and promoting linguistic diversity in society;
Promote a healthy multilingual economy, and
Give citizens access to European Union legislation in their own languages.

The new portfolio was criticized for vagueness and ambiguity, it has been claimed that the post overlaps with responsibilities of other Commissioners. The Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament has asked the current president of the Commission José Manuel Barroso to clarify the mandate of Commissioner for Multilingualism [1] and of other members of the Commission with regards to the “intercultural dialogue”.

European Parliament Socialist Group (PES) leader Martin Schulz suggested a portfolio for the protection of ethnic minorities instead. His party suggested the introduction of the protection of the Roma minority [2]. Barroso turned down the PES proposal and defended the post. He stated that Commissioner for Education, Training and Culture Ján Figeľ "will remain responsible for the management of actions to directly promote the inter-cultural dialogue".[3]