Languages constitute a vehicle for the communication of information, particularly of economic information. The creation of a single european market requires that all members engaged in economic activities should be able to have access to information in languages other than their own placed at their disposal and, conversely, that they should be able to communicate information to people who do not speak their language. This is the problem of the transfer of information between languages, in other words that of translation.

More precisely, the negative economic effects of multilingualism are twofold for those engaged in the european economy:

as producers of goods and services, they encounter additional obstacles when they wish to export; something which translates into loss of time and money and, as a consequence, reduced competitiveness;

as consumers of goods and services, they experience additional difficulties in getting information about the most recent technological developments and in procuring the most modern equipment; something which results in a technology lag and, in this case, an even greater loss of competitiveness.

In contrast, the fact of being the only important economic and industrial bloc in the world to have to find a solution to such problems can also give Europe a considerable economic advantage: Europe has the unique opportunity to acquire valuable expertise in the field of language processing which it can put into effect in its economic policy (directly, by selling its experience and achievements; indirectly, by overcoming more easily other linguistic barriers in its relations with other external economic partners: USSR, China, the Arab world, Latin America, etc.) and in its social policy (in applying its gains to the integration into society of the handicapped, etc.), as much in the area of monolingual activities as of multilingual ones.

The development of a healthy and profitable language industry would assure Europe in the longer term of world supremacy.