Last year we got the opportunity to get Europe's attention, since Sweden held the Presidency of the European Union from January to July. During our Presidency, one of the top conferences was the European Law Conference gathering top lawyers from all of the Member States of the Union. Thanks to a lot of lobby work, we managed to make "Clear language" one of the major themes of the conference. We also managed to get prominent speakers from different parts of the world: Professor Kimble of the United States, Tjeenk Willink, the most prominent lawyer of the Netherlands, Mrs. Wagner, Head of Translators at the European Commission, Professor Fioritti of Italy, Mme Fernbach of Canada and Mr. Cutts of the United Kingdom. The title for our theme of the conference was "Bridging the Gap between the European Union and its Citizens." At the conference, it was stressed that European legislation needs to be both accessible and comprehensible. Unfortunately, resistance has been strong. However, Professor Kimble very effectively refuted all serious charges against plain language. He showed that plain language can be precise, that it is preferred by the readers, that it does improve comprehension, and that is does save time and money. Claims have also been made that the Union Regulations and Directives are so special that they cannot be accurately transformed into another style or structure. But at the conference, Mr Cutts showed and described the work he had done re-writing a Union Directive. We believe that Mr Cutts has found a model that can convey the contents of a Directive in a way that is very easy to understand, and we hope that the ideas behind this re-write will gain acceptance in wider circles.

What is new about our efforts to influence the language use in the European Union is also that a new post has been created in the Government Offices - a language expert dedicated specially to issues of language use in the Union. The tasks related to this post are many. It's to help draft guidelines, revise documents and give advice. But even more important is the task of creating a network of contacts and to coordinate efforts. The network is to include contact persons at all authorities in Sweden, at the Institutions in the European Union and in other Member States of the Union. Soon, a web site will also open. Here, news will be published about the language work going on both in Sweden and in the rest of Europe. There will be a Q and A section, and here we will also collect a great number of guidelines and books on-line. Our aim is also to use the web site as a platform for debate.

We should not omit to say that there is a lot of reform work going on in Brussels. For instance, an Action Plan for better law-making was recently presented, which included many promising ideas. One example is the following quote:

"By being written in a less complicated style, Community legislation should be easier to implement for the Member States and operators concerned and easier for everyone to read and understand."