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ECML in the Council of Europe
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Founded in 1949, the Council
of Europe is the oldest and geographically the largest of the
European organisations. Its main domains of competence are human rights,
legal affairs, social cohesion and education, culture and heritage, youth
and sport.
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Eight countries - Austria, France, Greece, Liechtenstein, Malta, the
Netherlands, Slovenia and Switzer-
land - founded the European Centre
for Modern Languages in 8 April 1994 as an "Enlarged Partial
Agreement" of the Council of Europe. A Partial Agreement is defined as: "a form of co-operation allowing
to pursue certain activities not supported by all member states of the
Council of Europe. Consequently, only interested member states participate
in such an Agreement and bear the costs(…)". Today the ECML has 34 member
states. The ECML partial agreement is "enlarged", which means
that non-member states of the Council could also join the Centre.
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Resolution
(94) 10 established the ECML on a trial basis until December
1997. It furthermore stipulated, that an external evaluation group was
to assess the ECML's performance during the trial period. As a result
of the positive recommendations of this evaluation, the Committee of Ministers
decided to make the Centre a permanent institution through the Resolution
(98)11 in July 1998. This resolution spells out the aims and objectives
of the Centre, defines its structures and outlines the composition and
tasks of each organ.
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The ECML falls within the Council's Directorate General IV - Education,
Culture and Heritage, Youth and Sport.
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The Council of Europe has been active in the area of language education
since the 1960s. Its activities in this field aim to promote plurilingualism
and pluriculturalism among citizens, with the objective of:
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combating intolerance and xenophobia by improving communication and
mutual understanding between individuals, protecting and developing the linguistic heritage and cultural diversity
of Europe as a source of mutual enrichment, facilitating personal mobility and the exchange of ideas,
developing a harmonious approach to language teaching based on common
principles, promoting large-scale plurilingualism.
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The Council of Europe's work on language education is coordinated by
two complementary bodies, the ECML and the
Language Policy Division in Strasbourg. The Division's programme is concerned with policies and European standards
for the languages of school education, modern ('foreign') languages, the
languages of minorities and of migrants. The medium-term programme 2006-2009
is composed of four main interrelated projects:
Policies and standards in languages of school education Language Education Policy Profiles European proficiency standards for transparency and quality
Relating language examinations to the Common European Framework of
Reference for Languages (CEFR) Language requirements based on CEFR for adult migrants in relation
to residence or citizenship; Common curriculum framework for Romani
European Language Portfolio (ELP)
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