Poor Language Skills Hurting EU Firms

[Harold F. Schiffman]

 Europe February 26, 2007, 11:29AM EST text size: TT

Poor Language Skills Hurting EU Firms

Brussels says the bloc's global competitiveness is at stake, as 11% of
small businesses have lost out on revenue thanks to foreign language
deficiencies

by Renata Goldirova

Europeans must improve their language skills to ensure Europe's
competitiveness in the global market, Brussels has warned, as 11 percent
of EU small and medium-sized companies have lost an export contract and
miss out on revenues due to their staff's poor knowledge of foreign
languages. According to a study presented by EU multilingualism
commissioner Leonard Orban, EU businesses lost on average 325,000 each
over a three year period due to communication barriers.

"Far from being an unwelcome cost to doing business, investing in language
skills can dramatically improve a company's business opportunities", Mr
Orban said, underlining his "plan to place multilingualism at the heart of
the Lisbon strategy for more growth and jobs." Mr Orban criticized
European SMEs for relying on national education systems to provide them
with multi-lingual employees, instead of investing in the language
training themselves. Only 48 percent of businesses claim to offer language
training to their staff, although a similar number of companies (46
percent) plan to enter new export markets in the next three years.

Citing a clear link between languages and export success, the study offers
a company several hints for scoring better in the market place, such as
having a language strategy, appointing native speakers, recruiting staff
with language skills and using translators or interpreters. An SME
investing in these four policies was calculated to achieve an export sale
proportion 44.5 percent higher than one without these investments. The
study also shows that English remains the key language for gaining access
to export markets, although in large companies expanding beyond Europe's
borders Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Mandarin are on the rise.

The Romanian commissioner - able himself to speak English, French and
Italian aside from his mother tongue - pledged to push EU capitals to
establish a better link between education and business. But he also
admitted that "the room for manoeuvre is small", as education is a
national matter. Mr Orban's media appearance - the first one after having
taken up his position in January - revived questions about the relevance
of having a portfolio to govern EU languages, with some asking what was
the added value of today's report. According to Marco Incerti from the
Centre for European Policy Studies it was "useful to remind" EU capitals
of their homework, but he also added that the multilingualism portfolio
was "rather an artificial one to keep one person busy". "It could have
been incorporated into all agendas", Mr Incerti said, pointing out that
linguistic matters run through several areas such as education, social
affairs and economy.

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/feb2007/gb20070226_459826.htm?chan=globalbiz_europe_economics+%2B+policy
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