The LILAMA Network presented at LINEE’s « New Challenges for Multilingualism in Europe » conference

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From April 11th to 15th 2010, a representative of the LILAMA Network partner Université Montesquieu - Bordeaux IV (UMBIV) attended the LINEE « New Challenges for Multilingualism in Europe » conference held in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The conference was the closing event of the European project LINEE, aimed at creating a permanent research platform on multilingualism, from which new projects have been launched.

During the conference, LINEE's sister project, DYLAN, seeking to identify the conditions under which Europe's linguistic diversity can be an asset for the development of knowledge and economy, was also presented.

After a poetry recital in Croatian, Italian, Dubrovnik dialect and French by Anital Sujoldzic and poet Luko Paljetak, Mr. Harald Hartung, head of Unit Multilingualism Policy in the Directorate General for Education and Culture, opened the conference highlighting the fact that policy lines set up in 2008 are rendered difficult to implement in the context of the current economic crisis as any public budget is submitted to a detailed scrutiny and that language issues may not be considered a priority.

During the 5-day conference, experts debated on the two dimensions of multilingualism, the political and the scientific one, focusing on various issues identified in the European context: the European approach to multilingualism and/or plurilingualism, how it affects language diversity, minority languages in Europe, multilingualism as an economic driver, the role of immigrants in the European economy, etc..

The representative of UMBIV presented the LILAMA Network and its objectives, highlighting the need to identify good practices all over the world which could be transferred to European regions.

More information: LINEE - Languages in a Network of European Excellence