Coinciding with the European Day of the Languages, a delegation of NPLD headed Vice Chair Sabrina Rasom had an interview on 26 September with Tibor Navracsics, Commissioner who has been in charge of Multilingualism within the Education, Culture, Youth and Sport portfolio during the last 4 years (2014-2019).
During the meeting, the Commissioner reflected on the changes in the composition of the new European Commission (EC) and informed that the team in charge of Multilingualism would not change significantly, thus, a continuity in the EC’s policies towards linguistic diversity was suggested. The NPLD representatives expressed their insatisfaction to the outgoing Commissioner for not considering Education, Culture or Multilingualism as heading priorities of the new cabinet.
NPLD took the opportunity to express concern about the Blanquer law that the National Assembly of France just passed, which is going to seriously limit the opportunities of immersive learning in French regional languages at schools.
After the European elections and the constitution of the new European Parliament (EP), the European Council released on 10 September a list of persons whom it proposed for appointment as members of the Commission until 31 October 2024. Even though the candidates still need to be approved by the EP, it is forseeable that multilingualism will be part of the portfolio of Mariya Gabriel, the nominee for Innovation and Youth.