madam president as a member of the committee on culture allow me to extend my warm welcome to the initiative of erna hennicot-schoepges and katerina batzeli members of the committee on culture to address an oral question to the european commission and have this debate on the progress of the reform of the european schools
speaking of multilingualism and its importance let me use this opportunity to raise a serious concern we have in romania where the recent initiative of the ministry of regional development to complete the translation of the eu's regional operational programme from romanian into hungarian met serious attacks from the romanian social democratic party run by several leaders of the former communist regime
please note that this is happening in one of the twenty-seven eu member states in the european year of intercultural dialogue at a time when commissioner leonard orban issued a policy document entitled multilingualism an asset for europe and a shared commitment
in the european year of intercultural dialogue a debate on the reform of the european schools could not be of greater importance as we live in a multicultural and multilingual europe where different cultures and languages coexist
we need to encourage and enable such cultural interaction for successful european integration
therefore our european educational system needs to reflect this multicultural characteristic and allow a healthy and easy coexistence
european schools in particular were set up to meet these needs to provide multicultural and multilingual education while also strengthening european identity
however in an enlarged eu with greater citizen mobility and more agencies being created in different member states it has become a challenge to meet these needs
as the questions in today's debate underline there is a great need to focus on reforms as it has proved to be more and more complex to provide multilingual and flexible education of high quality
allow me to stress the fact that only by allowing students to express and practice their own cultural identity and use their own mother tongue throughout their education and formation can we allow them to evolve as true european citizens
if students studying in european schools are not able first to develop their national identity through the use of their mother tongue and culture i believe that they will not have a strong basis to build their european identity
thank you for your attention and i wish you good luck in the reform process of the european schools
