The Commission proposes the introduction of a European Indicator of Language Competence common to all the Member States to provide an accurate, reliable and comprehensive yardstick for assessing foreign language proficiency, on the basis of specially designed objective tests done by a sample of the population designed to assess linguistic proficiency in four areas: reading, comprehension, speaking and writing, commencing, for practical reasons, with written tests, the relevant data being collected at regular intervals, every three years for example.

Depending on how fast they learn and how much they commit, they can take up to 12 months to reach level B. After level B is reached, to go on to level C, which is a more complicated level, where you are expected to carry on conversations, to negotiate and to make presentations; it can take six more months for people who learn at a normal pace.

This Parliament has offered its support for the reform of the Commission and its request for posts, because we believe that the Union’s budget is synonymous with credibility, and there can be no credibility when in the last three financial years the average use of available payment appropriations stood at 85%, according to the European Court of Auditors.

Some prefer the term internal nation to region, in the context of internal enlargement at European level, which carefully avoids the terms independence and secession. Others refer to territorial, autonomous or local communities or entities, depending on their position among the various spheres of governance. Social and economic factors are the starting-point for some, culture and languages for others. According to some observers, North Rhineland-Westphalia and the Benelux countries form a single cultural and econo ...[+++]mic region, along Euregio lines. Some regions are grouped according to geographic or sectoral criteria, others according to their legislative powers.

The way the process is envisaged at this stage is that the citizenship test would be administered in English or in French and would ask primarily questions about the responsibilities of citizenship and of Canada, but through those questions that would be asked at a certain level of language, we would also be able to assess the person's level of language.

On page 8 of your report you make reference to a recent Treasury Board study showing that the number of full-time employees in all departments with some responsibility for official languages has dropped by about 50%.