Publication in French of Council of Europe documents

Doc. 8836

25 September 2000

Publication in French of Council of Europe documents

Written question No. 385

Reply from the Committee of Ministers

adopted at the 722^nd meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies (21 September 2000)

I. Written Question No. 385 by MM. Neuwirth, Legendre and others (Doc.8724)

In the communication on the activities of the Committee of Ministers for the first quarter 2000 (Doc. 8670 of 31 March 2000), on page 33 and the following pages, a summary of the activities of the Culture Committee is given, followed by a list of publications marked (in the French version) "English only". Nor is there any indication of publications in French.

MM. Neuwirth, Legendre and others therefore ask the Committee of Ministers:

Whether the Committee of Ministers intends to enforce compliance with the Statute of the Council of Europe, which stipulates that the official languages of the Council are French and English.

II. Reply from the Committee of Ministers

The Committee of Ministers has made a careful examination of Written Question No. 385 by MM Neuwirth, Legendre and others on the publication in French of Council of Europe documents.

The Committee of Ministers points out that the publications mentioned in the statutory report which were available only in English when the report was issued are made up as follows:

a. a document from the “New Book Economy” project (funded with resources from outside the Council of Europe), containing the “Proceedings” of the symposium on the same subject, which exists only in English and in “working paper” format;

b. publications of which only the English version was available when the Statutory Report was issued, but which were in the process of translation. These were “Cultural policy, a short guide”, “Policy Note No 6: Culture and civil society – new relationship with the ‘third sector’” and “Policy Note No 8: Cultural employment in Europe”. At the present time, the translation into French of the two Policy Notes is in hand and “Cultural policy: a short guide” should be translated by the end of 2000. One other publication was available in English, and partly in French, viz: “Proceedings of the first international workshop for professionals on Print-on-demand: a technological revolution at the service of cultural diversity”. The final version of this document, issued in a “pre-print” version in English, will be published in both official languages;

c. one publication which exists only in English, for want of sufficient translation funds in the Cultural Fund budget: “Cultural policies in Europe: a compendium of basic facts and trends”, also available on-line (http://culturalpolicies.net). This publication was compiled from country reports drawn up under the Cultural Fund’s survey of national cultural policies. All these national reports exist, in full or summary form, in French.

It is a matter of regret to the Committee of Ministers that for budgetary reasons it has not as yet been possible to translate into French, or envisage the translation of, the publication mentioned above. It will see to it that sufficient funds are made available to the Cultural Fund for the translation of its publications, including the one on cultural policies, which is of the greatest interest.

The Committee of Ministers observes that the relevant provision of the Council of Europe Statute concerning the Organisation’s use of languages remains the rule with which it fully intends to ensure compliance.