EUROPEAN UNION.
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
COUNCIL DECISION OF 21 NOVEMBER 1996 ON THE ADOPTION OF A MULTIANNUAL
PROGRAMME TO PROMOTE THE LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY OF THE COMMUNITY IN THE INFORMATION
SOCIETY (MLIS)
(96/664/CE. OJEU Nş L 306/40, 28-11-96)
COUNCIL DECISION
on the adoption of a multiannual programme to promote the linguistic diversity
of the Community in the information society
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular
Article 130(3) thereof,
Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,
Having regard to the Opinion of the European Parliament ( [1]),
Having regard to the Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee ( [2]),
Having regard to the Opinion of the Committee of the Regions ( [3]),
(1) Whereas the advent of the information society provides industry and in
particular the language industry with new prospects for communication and
trade on European and world markets which are marked by a rich linguistic
and cultural diversity;
(2) Whereas industry and all other players concerned must work out specific
and adequate solutions to overcome the linguistic barriers if they are to
benefit fully from the advantages of the internal market and remain competitive
on world markets;
(3) Whereas the private sector in this field consists mainly of small and
medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which face considerable difficulties in addressing
different language markets and must thus be supported, especially when their
role as a source of employment is considered;
(4) Whereas it is necessary to encourage the use of technologies, tools and
methods which reduce the cost of transferring information between people or
applications using different languages, while also assuring the quality of
translations, particularly in the case of literary translation, which requires
a specific creative effort;
(5) Whereas the Council of Europe, meeting in Corfu on 24 and 25 June 1994,
stressed the importance of the cultural and linguistic aspects of the information
society, and whereas the Council of Europe in Cannes on 26 and 27 June 1995
restated the importance to the European Union of its linguistic diversity;
whereas the G7 Conference of Ministers meeting in Brussels on 25 and 26 February
1995, drew attention to the importance of linguistic and cultural diversity
in the global information society;
(6) Whereas the emergence of the information society could afford the citizens
of Europe greater access to information and offer them an outstanding opportunity
for access to the cultural and linguistic wealth and diversity of Europe;
(7) Whereas language policies are a matter for the Member States, taking account
of Community law; whereas, however, promoting the development of modern language-processing
tools and their use is a field of activity in which Community action is necessary
in order to achieve substantial economies of scale and cohesion between the
various language areas; whereas the measures to be taken at Community level
must be commensurate with the objectives to be attained and concern only those
fields which are likely to produce an added value for the Community;
(8) Whereas the Member States could envisage using the structural funds within
the present regulatory framework to develop linguistic skills within the information
society;
(9) Whereas the Community should take into account the cultural and linguistic
aspects of the information society;
(10) Whereas efforts must be made to ensure that all European citizens have
equal opportunities to participate in the information society, irrespective
of their social, cultural, linguistic or geographical situation;
(11) Whereas it is essential to provide citizens with equitable access to
information; whereas this information should be available to them in their
language;
(12) Whereas languages that remain excluded from the information society would
run the risk of a more or less rapid marginalization;
(13) Whereas access to information should be enriched by the citizens' knowledge
of other languages; whereas, consequently, this programme is supplemented
by initiatives of the Community to expand the teaching of other Community
languages in schools;
(14) Whereas it is in the Community's interests to support the set-up of an
infrastructure encouraging the creation and exploitation of the language resources
required to improve language services and tools and give a boost to Research,
Technology and Development (RTD) work;
(15) Whereas raising awareness of and stimulating provision of multilingual
services in the Community which make use of language technologies, resources
and standards and their incorporation into computer applications should be
encouraged in order to reduce communication costs and to safeguard linguistic
diversity;
(16) Whereas the information and communications technology industries should
be encouraged to draw up standards which take account of linguistic diversity
and to incorporate them in their products and applications;
(17) Whereas it is useful for the Community institutions and the administrations
concerned in the Member States to collaborate more closely in order to reduce
the cost of developing and using the language tools required to carry out
their tasks, making full use of the facilities of this programme and the Community's
initiative adopted pursuant to Council Decision 95/468/EC of 6 November 1995
on a Community contribution for telematic interchange of data between administrations
in the Community (IDA) ( [4]);
(18) Whereas the actions carried out in implementing this programme should
be coordinated closely with other national and Community initiatives, as outlined
notably in the Commission's action plan "Europe's way to the information society
- an action plan", and should be performed in synergy with the Commission's
education, training, audiovisual, exchange of information, RTD and SME initiatives;
(19) Whereas complementarity and synergy with related Community initiatives
must be ensured by the Commission through appropriate coordination mechanisms;
(20) Whereas progress of the programme should be continuously and systematically
monitored with a view to adapting it, where appropriate, to developments with
respect to multilingualism; whereas in due course there should be an independent
evaluation of the progress of the programme so as to provide the background
information needed in order to determine the objectives for subsequent actions;
(21) Whereas at the end of this programme there should be a final evaluation
of the results obtained compared with the objectives set out in this Decision;
(22) Whereas the actions in this programme will not in any case prejudice
the competition rules of the Community;
(23) Whereas a financial reference amount, within the meaning of point 2 of
the Declaration by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission
of 6 March 1995, is included in this decision for the entire duration of the
programme, without thereby affecting the powers of the budgetary authority
as they are defined by the Treaty;
(24) Whereas mutual benefits can be obtained by involving international organisations
and legal entities from third countries in the implementation of all or part
of the programme, while respecting the general policies of the Community towards
these organisations; whereas cooperation with third countries in this field
should be integrated with the economic and technical cooperation programmes
of the Community with third countries,
HAS ADOPTED THIS DECISION:
Article 1
A Community programme is hereby adopted, the aims of which shall be:
to raise awareness of and stimulate provision of multilingual services in
the Community, which make use of language technologies, resources and standards,
to create favourable conditions for the development of the language industries,
to reduce the cost of information transfer among languages, in particular
for the sake of SMEs,
to contribute to the promotion of the linguistic diversity of the Community.
For the purposes of this Decision:
(a) multilingual services are defined as services allowing communication between
users of different languages of the Community;
(b) language industries are defined as companies, institutions and professionals
that provide, or enable the provision of, monolingual or multilingual services,
in fields such as information retrieval, translation, language engineering
and electronic dictionaries.
Article 2
In order to attain the objectives referred to in Article 1, the following
actions shall be undertaken in accordance with the action lines contained
in Annex I and the procedures for implementing the programme set out in Annex
III:
support for the creation of a framework of services for language resources
and encouragement for the associations involved in such a construction,
encouragement for the use of language technologies, resources and standards
and their incorporation into computer applications,
promotion of the use of advanced language tools in the Community and Member
States public sector,
accompanying measures.
None of these actions should duplicate the work being carried out in these
fields under Community or national programmes.
In all schemes planned, existing national, Community and international resource-pooling
cooperation arrangements in the field of translation, terminology, lexica
and corpora shall be taken into account in the Community's measures, so as
to make use of available facilities and avoid duplication of work.
Article 3
The programme shall start on the day this Decision is adopted and cover a
period of three years.
The financial reference amount for the implementation of this programme for
the abovementioned period shall be ECU 15 million.
The annual appropriations shall be authorized by the budgetary authority within
the limits of the financial perspective.
An indicative breakdown of expenditure is given in Annex II.
Article 4
1 The Commission shall be responsible for the implementation of the programme
and its coordination with other Community programmes.
The Commission shall be assisted by a committee composed of the representatives
of the Member States and chaired by the representative of the Commission.
2 The representative of the Commission shall submit to the Committee a draft
of the measures to be taken. The Committee shall deliver its opinion on the
draft within a time limit which the chairman may lay down according to the
urgency of the matter. The opinion shall be delivered by the majority laid
down in Article 148(2) of the Treaty in the case of decisions which the Council
is required to adopt on a proposal from the Commission. The votes of the representatives
of the Member States within the Committee shall be weighted in the manner
set out in that Article. The chairman shall not vote.
3.
(a) The Commission shall adopt the measures envisaged if they are in accordance
with the opinion of the Committee.
(b) If the measures envisaged are not in accordance with the opinion of the
Committee, or if no opinion is delivered, the Commission shall without delay
submit to the Council a proposal relating to the measures to be taken. The
Council shall act by a qualified majority.
If, on the expiry of a period of three months from the date of referral to
the Council, the Council has not acted, the proposed measures shall be adopted
by the Commission.
Article 5
1 The procedure laid down in Article 4 shall apply to:
the adoption of the work programme;
the breakdown of the budgetary expenditure;
the criteria and content of calls for proposals;
the assessment of the projects proposed under calls for proposals for Community
funding and the estimated amount of the Community contribution for each project
where this is equal to, or more than, ECU 100 000; where, however, the amount
is less than ECU 100 000, the Commission shall merely inform the Committee
of the projects and of the outcome of their assessment;
the measures for programme evaluation;
any departure from the rules normally applied as set out in Annex III;
participation in any project by legal entities from third countries and
international organisations.
2 The Commission shall regularly inform the Committee of progress with the
implementation of the programme as a whole.
Article 6
1 The Commission shall ensure that actions under this decision are subject
to effective prior appraisal, monitoring and subsequent evaluation.
2 During implementation of projects and after their completion, the Commission
shall evaluate the manner in which they have been carried out and the impact
of their implementation in order to assess whether the original objectives
have been achieved.
In so doing, the Commission shall in particular investigate the extent to
which the SMEs target group has benefited from the projects implemented.
3 The selected beneficiaries shall submit an annual report to the Commission.
4 The Commission shall submit to the European Parliament, the Council, the
Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, once the Committee
referred to in Article 4 has examined them, an intermediate and a final evaluation
report drawn up on the basis of an analysis made by independent experts, of
the results obtained in implementing the actions referred to in Article 2.
The Commission may present, on the basis of those results, proposals for adjusting
the orientation of the programme.
This analysis shall be submitted before any follow-up programme is approved.
Article 7
Participation in the programme may be open, in conformity with the procedure
laid down in Article 4, without financial support by the Community for the
programme, to legal entities established in third countries and to international
organisations, where such participation contributes effectively to the implementation
of the programme and taking into account the principle of mutual benefit.
Article 8
This Decision is addressed to the Member States.
Done at Brussels, For the Council The President
ANNEX I
ACTION LINES
1. Action Line 1: Support for the creation of a framework of services for
language resources and encouragement for the associations involved in such
a construction
Language resources such as dictionaries, terminological databanks, grammar
books, collections of texts and voice recordings are an essential raw material
for linguistic research, the development of language-processing tools integrated
into data processing systems, language learning and for improving translation
services. Considerable amounts of money have already been invested by the
Member States, the Commission and some private companies on producing language
resources. However, the size and complexity of these resources vary from language
to language depending, in particular, on demand for that language in the Community
public or private sector, thus hindering linguistic diversity. In addition,
the full utilization of the available resources is currently hampered by the
fact that they are mainly monolingual, often difficult to locate and the basic
specifications sometimes differ, thus limiting their wider use. The aim of
this action line is to support, for all European languages, the construction
of a European infrastructure of multilingual resources and to stimulate the
creation of electronic language resources. Most of the enterprises operating
in this sector are SMEs, which are often innovative and efficient, but whose
financial means are insufficient in view of the level of investments required.
1.1. Support for and synergy with associations of public and private sector
suppliers and users in the fields of electronic corpora, lexicons, speech
recordings and terminologies, may contribute to the objectives of this programme,
fostering Europe-wide cooperation with respect to availability and compatibility
of databases and networking, standardization, quality certification and elaboration
of property rights, user access rights and cost policies.
1.2. The availability of lexical databanks and textual and speech corpora,
which are suited for various applications and cover all the European languages,
is essential in order for a European language industry to make progress. Most
of the resources currently available in Europe are partial, variable in size
and complexity, monolingual and mutually incompatible, which makes their use
for the production of multilingual applications impossible. The Commission
will encourage the launch of concerted actions between public and private
sector operators in the different Member States with the aim of developing
standards and compatible vocal and lexical resources.
1.3. The work in the field of terminology covers a vast range of activities
with important implications for trade, science, the cultural sector and technology
and the implementation of Community decisions, directives and regulations.
This work is being undertaken by a very wide range of public and private operators
who often lack the means to coordinate their actions with those of their counterparts
in other Member States.
In this field too, the Commission will encourage the launch of concerted actions
between interested bodies in the different Member States in areas which have
priority in attaining the objectives of Community policies for standards,
dissemination of information and networking.
1.4. The Commission will ensure that the concerted actions receiving its support
have appropriate links with international work in this field.
2. Action Line 2: Encouragement for the use of language technologies, resources
and standards and their incorporation into computer applications
It is the private sector's role to produce and market modern tools facilitating
the development of multilingual data processing applications and information
transfer between languages. Europe has a solid scientific and technological
base in this field which has been strengthened by Community research and development
programmes, in particular the programmes relating to information and communications
technologies and telematic systems of general interest. However, the European
market lags behind when it comes to exploiting the advances made by research
in the area of language engineering. A concentrated effort needs to be made
to speed up the process of getting new language-processing technology on to
the market, particularly as part of the actions for disseminating and exploiting
the results of research carried out under the framework programme and the
specific programmes. All the action lines proposed in the present programme
seek to create an environment which is conducive to the expansion of the language
industries such as language engineering and translation industries.
The aim of this action line is to spur the language industries into action
by stimulating technology transfer and demand through a limited number of
shared-cost demonstration projects which could act as a catalyst in certain
key sectors.
While taking care to avoid duplication, synergies shall be sought between
the present programme and the other programmes relating to the information
society, in particular the fourth framework programme concerning research,
technological development and demonstration, the integrated programme for
SMEs and craft industries, and with the IDA initiative and the proposed ARIANE
programme.
2.1. A number of industries have experimented with controlled language to
facilitate drafting of technical documents and user-support information. This
approach improves general document management and allows effective use of
machine-translation. A limited number of shared-cost projects will demonstrate
the cost-effectiveness of integrating controlled language, authoring and translation
tools, in operational document management systems for different industrial
and business environments.
2.2. Localization of multimedia software, including translation of the spoken
and written word, is becoming increasingly in demand in the information society.
To stimulate professionalism and to improve competitiveness of the localization
and multimedia industries, a call will be issued to launch a small number
of shared-cost projects, demonstrating the integration of localization methodology
and tools, training of localization staff and developing best practice guidelines
of particular importance for SMEs.
2.3. The Commission will promote the use of networks by the translation and
interpretation industries. These give access to advanced tools, including
electronic dictionaries, improve logistics, allow integration with other functions,
and generally improve the functioning of the translation market. A call for
proposals will ask for the definition and implementation of European translation
directory services, the definition of an open translation environment in Europe
and for European tele-translation and tele-interpretation demonstrators with
the involvement of the translation industry and profession.
In consultation with the performers concerned, including translation schools,
the Commission shall examine the measures to be taken to speed up its networking
to increase its efficiency and bring it closer to potential users.
2.4. The information and technologies in the field of terminology and translation
available in the Community institutions and bodies will be made accessible
as far as possible to all interested parties. Access to relevant data will
be simplified so that cost-efficient use will be within the reach even of
SMEs.
3. Action Line 3: Promotion of the use of advanced language tools in the Community
and Member States public sector
In many Community programmes, the catalytic role of the public sector for
the quicker, widespread adoption of common standards has been recognized.
With the further development of the internal market and the removal of internal
frontiers, there will be an increase in the transfer of information between
administrations in the different Member States. These will be faced with an
increasing number of situations where they will need advanced language tools
in order to make communication with their counterparts in other Member States
easier and cheaper. Exchanging the experience acquired in the processing of
multilingualism by the Member States and the Community institutions and sharing
the language resources which each produces can help achieve economies of scale
and reduce the cost of multilingual communication.
3.1. The goal is to promote cooperation between administrations in the Member
States and the Community institutions in order to reduce the cost of multilingual
communication in the European public sector in particular by centralizing
advanced language tools. This will favour the establishment of an infrastructure
enabling each party to use the different linguistic tools available in the
Community institutions and the different administrations without any loss
of their current functions, whilst encouraging convergence in future developments.
3.2. Work will continue on shared-cost cooperation projects conducted with
certain Member States in order to improve terminological tools and existing
computer-assisted translation systems, and will be extended to include other
interested Member States, in particular those using less widely spoken languages.
3.3. A special effort will be made to bring the language tools for the new
official Community languages up to the level of the others.
4. Accompanying measures
Achieving the multilingual information society calls for the devising of converging
strategies on the part of the public authorities, associations and institutions
working to develop language resources and tools, the experimental users and
the market operators producing and disseminating the information services
or providing language-processing tools, services and systems. To help in this,
the Commission will carry out the following accompanying measures:
promoting technical standards which meet the linguistic needs of users,
organizing concertation and coordination between the principal operators
involved in developing a multilingual information society,
assessing progress made towards the multilingual information society, and
identifying remaining barriers,
launching promotional activities and user awareness campaigns and supporting
the exchange of best practice,
exploring the possibilities for fruitful collaboration with third countries
and multilingual international organisations.
ANNEX II
INDICATIVE BREAKDOWN OF EXPENDITURE
1. Support for the creation of a framework of services for language resources
and encouragement for the associations involved in such construction (29-38%).
2. Encouragement for the use of language technologies, resources and standards
and their incorporation into computer applications(29-38%).
3. Promotion of the use of advanced language tools in the Community and Member
States public sector (29-38%).
4. Accompanying measures(4-9%)
TOTAL: 100%
ANNEX III
PROCEDURES FOR IMPLEMENTING THE PROGRAMME
1. The Commission shall implement the programme in accordance with the technical
specifications set out in Annex I.
2. Where appropriate, the action lines in the programme shall be carried out
by means of shared- cost projects, except in the case of developments for
the Community institutions, in which case the rate may initially be up to
100%. The Community's financial contribution shall not exceed the minimum
considered necessary for a project and shall be granted in principle only
if the project meets financial obstacles which cannot otherwise be overcome.
In addition, the Community's financial contribution shall not normally exceed
50% of the cost of the projects except in duly justified exception cases taking
into account in particular participation by SMEs and less-favoured regions,
this proportion decreasing the closer the project is to being marketed. Universities,
other institutes and non-profit making research centres which do not have
cost-accounting systems shall be reimbursed at 100% of their additional costs.
3. The selection of shared-cost projects is, in principle, based on the normal
procedure for calls for proposals published in the Official Journal of the
European Communities. The objectives shall be set out in work plans compiled
in close cooperation with the market operators and the Committee referred
to in Article 4 of the Decision.
4. In exceptional cases, having received the opinion of the Committee referred
to in Article 4, the Commission may consider proposals for projects which
have not been requested but which might involve particularly promising and
important developments for achieving the objectives of the programme and which
could not be submitted under the normal procedure for calls for proposals.
5. Applications for Community support should provide, where appropriate, a
financial plan listing all the components of the funding of the projects,
including the financial support requested from the Community, and any other
requests for or grants of support from other sources.
6. Support for attempts to construct an infrastructure for linguistic resources
and/or the promotion of the use of advanced linguistic tools in the Community
and Member State public sector could take the form of concerted actions to
coordinate the development of multilingual linguistic resources, particularly
through "concertation networks". The Community's financial contribution could
cover up to 100% of the coordinating costs.
7. Projects financed entirely from the Community budget under study and service
contracts shall be implemented through a call for tenders by the Commission
in accordance with the provisions of the Financial Regulation ( [5]) and the
regulation laying down provisions for the implementation of the Financial
Regulation. Transparency will be ensured by the publication and regular dissemination
of the work programme to professional associations and other interested bodies
concerned.
8. To implement the programme, the Commission shall also carry out activities
drawn up in accordance with the general objectives of the programme and the
specific aims of each action line. Such activities shall include workshops,
seminars, conferences, studies, publications, awareness campaigns, training
courses, participation in cooperative projects with the administrations in
the Member States, the Community institutions and international organisations,
helping national language observatories recognised by the public authorities
and specific support for the development of language tools and resources for
those Community languages most in need of such assistance. All activities
receiving financial support must, at appropriate occasions, show acknowledgement
of Community funding.
Footnotes
([1]) OJ No C 198, 8.7.1996, p. 248.
([2]) OJ No C 212, 22.7.1996, p. 19.
([3]) Opinion delivered on 13 June 1996 (not yet published in the Official
Journal).
([4]) OJ No L 269, 11.11.1995, p. 23.
([5]) OJ No L 356, 31.12.1977, p. 1. Regulation as last amended by Regulation
(EC/Euratom/ECSC) No 2335/95 (OJ No L 240, 7.10.1995, p. 12).