Minutes of the General Assembly

Participating existing member organisations and their delegates (by country)

Belgium

(French Community)

Service à la langue française (French Language Service)

Martine Garsou

Nathalie Marchal

(Flemish Community)

see: Netherlands

Denmark

Dansk Sprognævn (Danish Language Council)

Niels Davidsen . Nielsen

Søren Beltoft

Finland

Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus / Forskningscentralen för de inhemska språken (Research

Institute for the Languages of Finland)

Mikaël Reuter

Pirjo Hiidenmaa

France

Délégation à la langue française et aux langues de France (Delegation for the French

Language and the Languages of France)

Xavier North

Jean-François Baldi

Bénedicte Madinier (observer)

Pierre Janin (observer)

Germany

Institute für Deutsche Sprache (Institute for the German Language)

Gerhard Stickel

Italy

Accademia della Crusca

Cecilia Robustelli

Minutes of the General Assembly of the European Federation of National Institutions for Language,

Meeting of Paris, Tuesday 9 November 2004

CNR Opera del Vocabolario italiano (Italian Dictionary Institute)

Pietro Beltrami

Netherlands

Nederlandse Taalunie (Dutch Language Union)

Johan Van Hoorde

Rob Visser

Sjaak Kroon (observer)

Spain

Real Academia Española (Spanish Royal Academy)

Rafael Rodriguez Marin

Sweden

Svenska språknämnden (Swedish Language Council)

Olle Josephson

Birgitta Lindgren

United Kingdom

Oxford English Dictionary

John Simpson

Absent member organisations and their delegates (by country)

Ireland

Institiúid Teangeolaíachta Éireann / Linguistics Institute of Ireland

The institute was dissolved by the Irish Government due to internal problems.

No succeeding organisation known yet.

Greece

K

έντρο ΕλληνικήςΓλώσσας/ Kentro Ellinikis Glossas (Centre for the Greek Language)1

Vassiliki Dendrinos

Due to a recent change of government in Greece it was unclear whether the institute

would again receive full government backing. For this reason the delegates chose not

to attend this conference.

Luxemburg

Conseil permanent de la langue luxembourgeoise (Permanent Council of the Luxemburg

Language)

Georges Wirtgen

Ralph Fichtner

The Council was in process of restructuring. Mr Fichter announced that the Council

would inform us of its position within EFNIL at the beginning of 2005.

Portugal

Instituto Camões

In spite of regular contact between the General Secretary of EFNIL and the Secretariat of the

Instituto Camões, the Instituto finally decided that it was unable to send a delegate to the

conference in Paris. The Secretary however would stay in touch with the Instituto Camões.

1

The EFNIL Secretariat was sadly informed that Prof. Christidis had died soon after Christmas, as a

Minutes of the General Assembly of the European Federation of National Institutions for Language,

Meeting of Paris, Tuesday 9 November 2004

Participating observers

European Commission

Directorate General Translation

Margareta Roth

Austria

Austrian Academy of Science

Rudolph de Cillia

Iceland

Islensk Málstöd (Icelandic Language Institute)

Ari Pali Kristinsson

Norway

Norsk Språkråd (Norwegian Language Council)

Sylfest Lomheim

(To be considered as Associate EFNIL member from point 3 of the agenda onwards)

United Kingdom

British Council

Jeremy Jacobson

Participating observers from new EU member states

Czech Republic

Institute of the Czech National Corpus

Franti.ek

Čermák

Estonia

Estonian Language Council

Jüri Valge

Institute of the Estonian Language

Urmas Sutrop

(To be considered as regular EFNIL members from point 3 of the agenda onwards)

Hungary

Research Institute for Linguistics

Tamas Varadi

Latvia

Latvian Language Institute

Janis Valdmanis

Ina Druviete

(To be considered as regular EFNIL members from point 3 of the agenda onwards)

Lithuania

State Commission for the Lithuanian Language

Irena Smetoniene

Institute of the Lithuanian Language

Jolante Zabarskaïte

Minutes of the General Assembly of the European Federation of National Institutions for Language,

Meeting of Paris, Tuesday 9 November 2004

(To be considered as regular EFNIL members from point 3 of the agenda onwards)

Malta

University of Malta

Manwel Mifsud

Poland

Council for the Polish Language

Walery Pisarek

Krystyna Pisarkowa

Slovakia

Ĺ

udovit .túr Institute of Linguistics

Slovenia

Ministry of Culture

Janez Dular

Chair of the General Assembly

•

Gerhard Stickel (President of the Executive Committee of EFNIL)

accompanied at the Chairman.s table by:

Johan Van Hoorde (General Secretary of EFNIL)

1. Opening and welcome

Mr. Stickel took the chair, welcomed the participants and opened the meeting of the General

Assembly at about 9 am. The agenda was accepted by all delegates without changes.

2. Acceptance of new institutions as member organisations or as associate organisations

The representatives of the language institutions in the new EU member states were all enthusiastic

about the existence of EFNIL, its goals and its plans. The representatives of the language institutions

in the following countries expressed their interest in becoming members of EFNIL in brief oral

statements:

Poland

would like to become a member. A final decision could only be taken after internal discussions

Malta

was interested in joining EFNIL but could not do so for the time being because no official

Latvia

indicated its willingness to become a full member.

Lithuania

indicated its willingness to become a full member.

Slovenia

The Slovenian representative was interested in becoming a member. However final

Minutes of the General Assembly of the European Federation of National Institutions for Language,

Meeting of Paris, Tuesday 9 November 2004

Estonia

indicated its willingness to become a full member. The commitment of the Estonian

Czech Republic

Professor Čermák stated that his institute would like to join EFNIL but that finances1500 euros) represented

Slovakia

Before making any commitment to EFNIL the Slovak representative said that he would like

Hungary

The delegate from Hungary was interested in becoming a member of EFNIL. However heother countries were invited by Mr Stickel to indicate

Austria

Professor De Cillia stated there is no Austrian language body that would be the natural

United Kingdom

Mr Jacobson of the British Council declared that his organisation would probably(Norway) indicated his willingness to become an associateIceland however announced that he felt that his organisation

3. Organisational Procedures and Regulations

The draft text, that was distributed together with the other conference documents, still contained

several minor stylistic errors. The Chairman enumerated them:

- page 2:

the word .official. in the first line of articles 4§3, 4§4, 4§5 should be omitted

Minutes of the General Assembly of the European Federation of National Institutions for Language,

Meeting of Paris, Tuesday 9 November 2004

- page 3:

in article 7§1, line 1 should read .decisions are taken by a simple or by a qualified1. The General Secretary would

4. Executive Committee: replacement for Mr Bengio (France)

Since Abraham Bengio had left the DGLFLF, there was now a vacancy within the Executive

Committee. Mr Bengio had been succeeded within the DGLFLF by Mr Jean-François Baldi, who was

the person principally responsible for the organisation of the Paris conference. The Chairman

proposed to let Mr Baldi succeed Mr Bengio within the Executive Committee until the end of the

mandate period of the Executive Committee in 2006. All delegates of the General Assembly agreed

with this proposal. Mr Baldi accepted the appointment.

Mr. Bengio had been the Vice-President of the EFNIL Executive Committee. The Chairman proposed

the appointment of Pietro Beltrami, currently a regular member of the Executive Committee, as the

new Vice-President of the EFNIL Executive Committee. Again everybody agreed with this proposal. Mr

Beltrami accepted the appointment.

5. Reports for the activity year 2003-4

5.1 Activity Report

Most of the delegates seemed satisfied with the activities of the Executive Committee during the past

year. The Chairman explained that the Executive Committee still did not have a secretariat of its own

and that the Committee Members still had to rely on the availability of the present EFNIL secretariat,

provided by the Nederlandse Taalunie. All the work for EFNIL by Committee Members or by the

Secretariat had to be conducted alongside their regular work.

Dr Oliva wondered why EFNIL had not applied for standard funding from the EU for its projects. The

General Secretary explained that calls for proposals from various Directorates General of the EU had

been considered in the past. It turned out that there were a few reasons that made it very difficult to

apply for funding:

a)

EFNIL is a generalist group, rather than one with a specialist objective. EFNIL did not fit into any of

b)

It would not be a problem for a small group of three or four organisations to apply for such funds

Minutes of the General Assembly of the European Federation of National Institutions for Language,

Meeting of Paris, Tuesday 9 November 2004

c)

In Mr Van Hoorde.s view a third problem is represented by the fact that EFNIL is not a legal entity.

d)

The EU only contributes money if the applying organisation pays 50% of the costs of the project.

5.2 Financial Report

The General Secretary informed delegates that at this stage the Executive Committee had not hired

an accountant to audit the accounts, as at present everything was relatively simple. But for the future

some sort of control should be put in place. The Chairman proposed that for next year.s financial

report a

financial review board could be appointed. This idea was supported by a majority of the

6. Report about projects

6.1 Language legislation

Last year the DGLFLF carried out a research project on the linguistic profile of the official languages in

twenty-seven countries in Europe. The information on these languages was obtained by the French

embassies in these countries. The embassies asked the relevant governments for some basic

information about their official language by means of sending them a questionnaire. The results of this

research project were published by the DGLFLF in a booklet that was also distributed on 8 November

2004 during the EFNIL reception hosted by the French Minister of Culture. The results would also be

published on the web sites of the DGLFLF and EFNIL. The Chairman asked the delegates to check

the information about their country and to inform the DGLFLF of any corrections and additions

considered necessary. The corrected data will be published on the Federation.s web site.

6.2 ‘White site’ pilot project – European Language Monitor

Sjaak Kroon of the University of Tilburg (Netherlands) and chairman of the scientific committee of this

project presented a short report about the project. The Nederlandse Taalunie co-ordinated the project

and financed the general part of it (data collection, scientific advice, building of web site), the member

organisations of the participating pilot countries being (financially) responsible for the collection of data

regarding their language and country. The first stage of the project was finished a few weeks ago. The

result was a database with relevant information about the use and the status of several European

languages. The database was accessible on a demo computer in the computer room next to the

conference room. Mr Kroon stressed that the web site still needed adjustments and enhancements.

For instance Euromap should be linked to this web site or should perhaps even be included on the

site.

Cecilia Robustelli complained that this project had been too ambitious. In the short term she proposed

working with a shorter, less complicated questionnaire. For a possible, more ambitious, long-term

project, she proposed organising the data collection in a different way, i.e. in several phases, by

means of partial questionnaires for specific domains of interest.

The Chairman stressed that this project was nothing more than a pilot project, i.e. a project intended

as a learning process, after which we would hopefully know whether an ELM of all of the languages of

Europe was a feasible aim. Considering the difficulties he thought that the project had been a success.

It was shown that relevant data about the use and status of languages could be collected and that this

collection offers important indications on which policy measures could be based. At the moment the

Minutes of the General Assembly of the European Federation of National Institutions for Language,

Meeting of Paris, Tuesday 9 November 2004

web site gives a good impression of the present situation as regards the languages involved in the

pilot study. In the longer term the .monitor. should also allow the identification of changes in the

linguistic situation over time. We should be able to monitor this change.

Martine Garsou suggested comparing the format of the pilot report to that of the reports on the

situation of the French language throughout the world, issued by the body responsible for the

collaboration of the international French-speaking community. This report might give important clues

as to the variables considered relevant for assessing the position and .health. of a language.

As a conclusion it was stated that in the short term a few improvements and enhancements could be

made to the project report. However, it was concluded that setting up a full European Language

Monitor, including all countries and languages and comprising a time dimension, was too ambitious a

project for EFNIL alone. EFNIL could try to work out a sort of functional project plan. For the execution

of this plan the financial support of the European institutions would be necessary. The Executive

Committee will evaluate possibilities for the short and long term within the framework of the EFNIL

work programme of 2004.5 and will report its conclusions/proposals to the members of the General

Assembly.

EFNIL Web site

Pietro Beltrami explained to all members (old and new) that the EFNIL web site should contain all

texts in as many languages as possible. It would be impossible for the Executive Committee, as well

as being very expensive, to have all these texts translated. So, all members who hadn.t yet delivered

translations were requested to provide these by e-mail. This was the only way in which improvements

to the web site could be made in an affordable and workable manner. Some delegates were also

asked to send in translations of the descriptive texts on their organisations. The Executive Committee

would of course still contact the new member organisations about the contents of the descriptive texts

that would be required from them.

The General Secretary informed the General Assembly of the fact that some member organisations

had sent updated versions of their descriptive texts to the Secretariat. Unfortunately these updates

had not been published on the Internet already, because of time pressure in the run-up to the annual

conference. The updates would be published as soon as possible after the conference.

7. Planning for the activity year 2004-5

7.1 Activity and project programme

The General Secretary explained that the main objectives of the Executive Committee for the year

2004-5 were:

-

strengthening the structural basis of EFNIL, including amongst other things:

o

enlarging EFNIL to include regular delegations from each member state of the European

o

strengthening contacts between the Executive Committee and the EFNIL secretariat on the

o

identifying options for establishing a separate EFNIL secretariat;

-

strengthening the position of EFNIL in relation to the institutions of the European Union and the

-

establishing contacts with other European networks and collaboration structures such as the

Minutes of the General Assembly of the European Federation of National Institutions for Language,

Meeting of Paris, Tuesday 9 November 2004

EFNIL were not yet strong enough to set up, finance and carry out important new projects. There was

a clear lack of financial resources and of work capacity.

Olle Josephson said that he would very much like to have a summary of the discussion on terminology

and translation, and of the outcome of this discussion, as he wished to know whether it had resulted in

useful points of action. The Executive Committee should then review what action points needed to be

recorded. The assembly approved the plans of the Executive Committee for the activity year 2004-5.

7.2 Financial Budget

The assembly approved the budget proposal of the Executive Committee for the financial year 2004-5.

7.3 Membership fee 2004-5

After the conference the Secretariat would start collecting the membership fees for the financial year

2004-5. The President stated that the Executive Committee was aware of the fact that a fee of 3000

euros was a substantial amount of money for many language institutions from the new EU member

states. If any of these organisations should face problems with the payment of their fees the Executive

Committee would evaluate the situation seriously and consider possible solutions.

7. Annual Conference 2005

An important decision point concerned the country and member organisation which would host the

next annual conference. Mr Varadi stated that he would be interested in hosting the conference in

Budapest. However, he could not decide alone and would therefore planned to discuss options with

colleagues from his academy. This meant that Budapest could be considered a possible but not a

certain candidate. Since there were no other candidate member organisations, a decision could not be

taken during the General Assembly. The Executive Committee would explore the possibility of

organising the conference in Budapest. If this should turn out to be impossible and if there were no

other candidates, the Committee would consider organising the conference itself in Brussels. The

President stressed the fact that a financial contribution of

€ 25,000 to the organising institution has

-

multilingual practices within the institutions of the European Union

-

specific problems of pluricentric languages

-

linguistic regions within Europe (such as the Union Latine, Scandinavian Languages Council etc.).

Minutes of the General Assembly of the European Federation of National Institutions for Language,

Meeting of Paris, Tuesday 9 November 2004

9. Miscellaneous

The General Secretary proposed reducing the number of working languages at the next annual

conferences to two, i.e. English and French, in order to make the organisation of the conference

easier and less expensive and also to create more equal opportunities between the representatives of

all languages, smaller and bigger ones. The President stated his opinion that for the time being EFNIL

should stick to using as many working languages as possible, since plurilingualism is the central

philosophy of the Federation. In his view, as a general principle the language of the hosting

organisation should always be included amongst the working languages. Several members stated that

they would not be in favour of using only one language, but would accept the idea of using only a few

working languages. The language problem will be re-evaluated in relation to the financial and

organisational situation of the hosting institution.

10. Closing

The President closed the session of the General Assembly at about

11.15 am and thanked the

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