Languages constitute the vehicle of information, notably economic information. The creation of a single European Market necessitates that each partner participating in economic activities have access to information published in languages other than their own, and inversely that they can communicate information to persons not speaking their own language. This is the whole problem of transferring information between languages, otherwise known as translation.

More precisely, the negative economic impact of multilinguism is twofold for European economic actors:

as producers of goods and services, they run into supplementary obstacles once they wish to export, which results in a loss of time and money, and, consequently, lessened competitivity;

as consumers of goods and services, they encounter heightened difficulties to stay informed of the most recent technological developments and to procure the most modern equipment, which results in a technological lapse, and once again in a loss of competitivity.

On the other hand, the fact of being the only economic and industrial block in the world which needs to resolve such problems might also give Europe a considerable economic advantage: It has here the unique occasion to acquire a precious savoir-faire in the domain of treating languages, that it take advantage of in the economic domain ( directly by selling its experience and products. indirectly by overcoming other linguistic barriers in its relation with other exterior economic partners: USSR, China, the Arab world, Latin America, etc.) as well as in the social domain (applying its experience in the integration of the handicapped, etc.), in its monolingual and well as multilingual activities.

The development of Industries of language that are thriving and profitable will assure a long term European supremacy in this field.