December 6, 2016
Dispatch on culture 2016-2020 and languages
The “dispatches” are an integral component of the legislative process in Switzerland. They serve to define and establish new strategic axes of federal policy, to explicate the course of action and to comment on legislative texts. The Dispatch on the promotion of culture for 2016-2020 (28 November 2014) contains information on the financial management of the Confederation’s promotion of culture during the corresponding budget period (as an exception, five years instead of four) and, more specifically, the strategic directions with respect to languages.
The Federal Council proposes financial resources amounting to 1,121,6 million Swiss francs. It aims to intensify the cooperation between the federal government, cantons, cities and municipalities, to continue the current policy and to adopt new measures. Switzerland’s cultural policy faces many different challenges, which the Federal Council has outlined under the keywords of globalisation, digitalisation, demographic change, individualisation and urbanisation. On these grounds, it has defined three lines of action: cultural participation, social cohesion, as well as creation and innovation. The corresponding measures include the question of languages.
This is addressed in the section on social cohesion: “Recognising cultural diversity in our society and respecting linguistic and cultural minorities are important prerequisites for social cohesion and the country’s social harmony. The federal government aims to strengthen cohesion during the 2016–2020 funding period with the following measures: increased support for literary translations between the national languages; heightened status of the Italian language beyond Italian-speaking Switzerland; further development of exchanges between schools in the linguistic regions; intensified cultural exchange domestically facilitated by Pro Helvetia […]”.
The federal government intends in particular to promote the national languages in its administration by improving the federal employees’ language skills and stimulating improved representation of the linguistic communities. Emphasis will also be placed on fostering understanding and exchange between linguistic communities (language instruction, exchange between schools, exchange between cultural players, etc.), supporting plurilingual cantons as well as preserving and promoting the Italian and Romansh languages and cultures, both in and outside their respective cantons.
In order to strengthen social cohesion, it is essential to facilitate cultural exchange, mutual understanding and plurilingualism on the individual as well as on the institution level. These measures are also to be viewed within the framework of generally improving access to culture in Switzerland through participation of the population in cultural life – one of the most important goals of the Confederation’s cultural policy.
Certain challenges are particularly pressing: the increasing influence of English as regards the issue concerning language instruction in schools (“taking the national languages into account in language instruction [is] therefore of utmost importance”), the status of the Italian language, which is especially at risk (“The federal government must act on this situation within the scope of possibilities placed at its disposal with the law on languages”), as well as the threat to the diversity of cultural offerings in rural areas (which leads to the need for a cultural exchange policy aiming to promote social cohesion that “should therefore also focus on the exchange between the different cultural and social groups throughout all of Switzerland”).
The dispatch on culture concludes with a reminder that plurilingualism is a key feature of Switzerland. The federal government and the cantons share the responsibility for ensuring the preservation and promotion of Switzerland’s linguistic diversity.
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