SUMMARY

  The next wave of enlargement will increase the number of official EU languages by five. The impact of this enlargement on the flow and quality of information cannot be inferred from the experience of the last increase, in 1995, which the Union took in its stride. The next increase will mark a quantum leap in the need to assess independently and critically information emanating from the new Member States. The geopolitical position of these States as the EU's new eastern border highlights the urgency of having expert analysis and advice readily available about these countries.

  This memorandum highlights the lack of sufficient numbers of British specialists to deliver information, analysis and assessment of the quality that we shall soon need. UK universities alone can no longer meet the growing need for training and expertise. The growing complexity of East/Central European societies makes greater demands on a resource base that is itself already under threat. Therefore if the universities are to continue to play an important role in the provision of information, analysis and assessment, they must share and co-ordinate resources while at the same time establishing innovative partnerships with the end-users outside academe.

  Thus we are facing a stark choice. Either we shall have to depend largely on the applicant countries themselves for most information and analysis about themselves; or urgent remedial action must be taken without delay. This memorandum proposes a programme of action based on co-operation with:

—  UK universities to form regional centres of expertise using new IT systems;

—  institutions in several Member States and the applicant countries;

—  end-users outside the universities.

  Funding for such a programme would be sought from a combination of UK sources and European Commission project funding (e.g., Framework Programme 5). The outcome would be self-renewing cohorts of British trainers and specialists able to deliver analysis and assessment of information for a range of end-users including government and administration, industry and business, education and the media.

1. Present situation

  1.1 The memorandum discusses the analysis and assessment of information that are generally available to the public and private sectors as part of the information environment. It is compiled with particular reference to the needs of decision-makers and opinion-formers.

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  1.2 Our knowledge of most of the Member States of the European Union comes from various sources. Central to these sources is our general education at school and at university. An enormous body of published material about the life and institutions of each Member State is readily available in bookshops and public libraries. The print and electronic media are also well informed of developments in the Member States; they provide a critical and knowledgeable public discourse on all developments in those states that affect our interests (and even, on occasions, set the agenda). A small but rapidly growing part of the UK population also has the ability to assess information in one or more languages of the Member States. Thus we have available a stream of reasonably reliable information and assessment. Such an information environment ensures an adequate level of knowledge to understand and respond intelligently to policy initiatives from the Member States and to assess the impact, and likely response from the States to our own initiatives.

  1.3 The risk is, however, that we take this information environment for granted despite the fact that there are already several Member States for which our level of knowledge and information is far less comprehensive. Three obvious examples are Denmark, Sweden and Finland. However, our ignorance in respect of these three States is less damaging as it is mitigated by two factors. First, they are essentially Western countries with open societies which share the same values of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights as ourselves. Secondly, these States also provide large amounts of carefully weighed information in English. Their spokespersons apply the same norms to the provision and assessment of information as in other Western countries. Nevertheless, the situation regarding the flow and assessment of information in respect of these three States will remain inherently fragile so long as we have only a very small number of own specialists with the ability and skills to assess that information in the original language and in the social and cultural context of the country concerned.

2. The situation following accession of the first-wave countries

  2.1 This memorandum refers to Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovenia. However, what is stated below applies equally to those countries which are likely to enter the EU in the second wave: Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria.

  2.2 None of the Member States has any information resource on these countries comparable to what is outlined in paragraph 1.2. Nor can it be assumed that we can safely depend for our knowledge and information of these countries mainly on what they themselves publish and tell us in English. The effects of 50 years of totalitarian society cannot be discarded overnight. Harmonisation of social institutions is preparing the way for closer understanding of our respective societies and institutions. However, the process of generational change must also take place before the societies of the Member States and those of the applicant countries fully interact—in heart as well as mind—and share the same level of mutual understanding in respect of democracy, the rule of law and human rights that is taken for granted among present Member States. Until we reach that state, all exchange of knowledge and information vital to our strategic interests should undergo well-informed scrutiny and assessment if we are to maintain even a minimal level of mutual understanding.

3. The UK's readiness in terms of knowledge and language skills for enlargement

  3.1 Until the late 1980s, study of the applicant countries took place in the context of the study of the Soviet Union and East/Central Europe. British universities were pre-eminent internationally in this activity thanks to the skilful application of "area studies" methodology: i.e., combination of a discipline (e.g., economics, history) with a command of the language and culture of the country in question. The universities' role was to pursue "pure research" and to train new cohorts of specialists. The universities worked closely with NGOs (e.g., Chatham House, RUSI) on broader topical issues (applied research), and with the research departments of various government bodies (e.g., FCO's Research and Analysis, British Council, BBC World Service) on specific issues of immediate urgency. The nature of the Soviet regime with its political domination of East/Central Europe meant that teaching and research had in most cases to be conducted in difficult conditions. In particular, this limited personal contacts and academic discourse between scholars, and restricted access to libraries and archives in the countries concerned. Despite these unfavourable conditions, teachers in universities helped to make these societies—in terms of their history, cultures, economic and social conditions—comprehensible not only to their own students but also, through the bodies they co-operated with, to the wider community of decision-makers and opinion-formers in this country.

  3.2 In the aftermath of 1991, study of the former Soviet Union and East/Central Europe moved into a new era and had to adapt rapidly to new circumstances. In place of the centralised Soviet Union, we had to deal with the three Baltic Republics and the Commonwealth of 12 Independent States. The former Czechoslovakia divided into two states: the component parts of the former Yugoslavia have still to settle into a new mould. Each of the new states is now conducting its affairs in its own language. The leaders of the new states are engaged in re-arranging economic, political, security, social and cultural affairs in their own regional interests and choose their partners accordingly.

  3.3 The study of the applicant countries in the UK has not kept abreast of these developments. Public thinking in the UK and elsewhere has frequently taken the view that the collapse of communism removed the problem, ignoring the reality that the removal of one problem has opened the way to a surge of new problems. Many of these problems are welcome (e.g., the diversification and increased complexity characteristic of open societies), others less so (e.g., unbridled persecution of minorities). It may come as a surprise, therefore, to the Foreign Affairs Committee to learn that in the eight years since the collapse of the Soviet empire, only one formal initiative has been made to address the growing and increasingly diverse needs for knowledge and information about this large chunk of Europe. As a result of a Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) review in 1995, pump-priming of three years' duration was provided for 33 new posts to increase the coverage of the countries of East/Central Europe. Provision as a whole, however, has scarcely grown, since losses of established posts in the meanwhile are keeping the overall number of specialists on East/Central Europe in UK Universities at about the same level as they were at the end of the Soviet period. The message is stark. As the need grows larger, our national pool of expertise is not keeping abreast.

  3.4 It is important to stress that these new posts are helping to generate information of the kind needed by decision-makers and opinion-formers. Unfortunately, the funding of higher education is such that it provides no guarantee that such scholarship and research will continue to find support in the longer term. The reason for this lies in the HEFCE funding system. The funding of posts is linked to a formula comprising student numbers+research grades. This militates against subjects for which student numbers are small and means that posts are becoming increasingly fragile in such subjects as Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Serbian and Croatian, Romanian, Bulgarian and Slovene Studies. They have already gone in Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Studies.

  3.5 The impact of the funding mechanism on low student numbers is heaviest on language and cultural studies of East/Central Europe, where the situation is now approaching crisis point. The few UK universities teaching these subjects are all seeing a decline either in the quantity or the quality of teaching and research, or in both. Polish, Hungarian and Czech are taught at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) by two people for each subject (one language, one culture) across a range of levels; recent innovation at SSEES has enabled language to be taught to meet a wider range of needs but more still needs to be done. At Cambridge, Czech will be phased out in 1999, Polish and Hungarian in 2001. At Oxford, with the exception of Czech these three subjects are taught sporadically, mainly as languages. The University of Sheffield teaches the Czech and Polish languages. The University of Glasgow teaches Polish and Czech language and culture. The University of Bristol teaches Czech language and a very limited amount of Czech culture. Slovene language is available at SSEES and the University of Nottingham. The teaching of Estonian language at SSEES stopped two years ago for financial reasons. This is, in effect, the sum total of the UK's higher education capacity for supporting the national interest of maintaining cohorts of specialists with well-developed skills in the languages and cultures of the first-wave applicant countries.

4. What can be done to improve the situation?

  4.1 The solution to the problem of the growing shortage of specialists is not to be found from within the present higher education structures in the UK. Left to itself under the present funding arrangements, no UK university alone can provide what is needed to meet the requirements outlined in paragraphs 1.3 and 2.2. However, I can see solutions that are deliverable provided universities form specialised consortia and provided collaboration is undertaken with institutions outside the conventional higher education sector both in the UK and the European Union. It is essential to stress the urgency of taking effective action quickly. Significantly, the institutions of the EU have already recognised their forthcoming needs and started training programmes for translators and interpreters of the languages of the five applicant countries. The training of country specialists of the kind discussed in this memorandum is a longer and more demanding process: the UK has not yet even recognised the need for this.

  4.2 HEFCE funding is not geared to "special cases". Additional help could be expected from HEFCE only if it can be linked to specific national or regional needs and strategies (preferably in accordance with recommendations in the Dearing Report). HEFCE might be able to consider establishing one or more "regional centres" for the teaching and learning of the less commonly studied languages if these were developed as part of a regional programme of distance teaching and learning using interactive video-conferencing technology and developing a range of multimedia language-learning materials. SSEES has already gained some experience in such activity and would be glad to provide further information about this to the Committee.

  4.3 In the past decade, the UK private sector has had greater experience than universities in delivering specialist language skills for special purposes within compressed periods of time. Universities should be learning from this experience and sharing in further developments of teaching and learning methodologies. In developing a UK stock of competence in teaching and learning of the languages of the applicant countries, and in skills delivery, a designated centre in the higher education sector could be charged to work more closely with such institutions. SSEES, which is co-owner of a joint venture in language-teaching, would be glad to provide further details about this approach.

  4.4 An important new source of expertise for a larger-scale operation of teaching the languages, cultures, economic and social conditions of the applicant countries to people in the UK is to be found in the applicant countries themselves. Centres exist in each of these countries (attached to universities), for the teaching of the local language to foreigners. The experience of these institutions should be harnessed for our purposes, making use of the technology described in paragraph 4.2 and by placements of British specialists in these centres for further training and experience.

5. A way ahead

  The European Commission Framework Programme 5 may offer the opportunity to establish a network of specialist institutions which could collaborate in the teaching and learning of the languages, cultures, economic and social conditions of the applicant countries. The aim of such a project would be to form a consortium of partners (representing four Member States and all five applicant countries) to collaborate with specialists both inside and outside the higher education sector in the development of appropriate courses and training programmes. Links with the specialist centres in the applicant countries would not only assist in the teaching and learning process in the UK and other Member States, but would also provide a base for further study in the language, culture, economic and social conditions of the country concerned.

  In order to secure funding for such a project under the Framework Programme 5, high-level endorsement by an appropriate UK body would strengthen an application to the European Commission. The Foreign Affairs Committee is asked to consider making a recommendation to this effect.

December 1998