Geen gelijkheid van talen op IGC (en) - Main contents

EUOBSERVER / ROME - Despite an official declaration of "equal footing" treatment at the inter-governmental conference launched today (4 October) in Rome, the new EU member states were not given a translation service equal to current EU states during their work on the final shape of the EU Constitution.

For financial and technical reasons, the Italian Presidency was unable to provide the nine languages of the EU newcomers at the meeting which brought together heads of state and government as well as their foreign ministers.

Full interpreting and translation service was only provided in the 11 current EU official languages.

This meant that while ministers from accession countries were able to speak in their own tongue, translation back was in current EU languages.

However, the Polish and Czech Foreign Ministers did not appear all too upset.

"This is not a real problem. We understand and we can speak foreign languages" the Czech foreign minister Cyril Svoboda told the EUobserver.

His Polish counterpart, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, shares a similar view claiming that everything is a matter of "education".

The Italian press service was unable to comment on the issue.