The writers of this study make an in-depth examination of all the interdependent factors which need to be taken into account in the devising and implementation of a language policy encouraging every learner to achieve an integrating communication competency spanning a large number of languages and cultures and encompassing not only general competences at different levels, but also balanced partial competences fostering receptive skills.
This study represented a stage in the process of developing a common European reference framework for the teaching and learning of languages. Its purpose was to establish a relationship between the concept of communicative competence, which has had something of a chequered life but is still fruitful, and the prospects of maintaining and promoting linguistic and cultural pluralism, which is both a recognised fact and a political issue in today's Europe and elsewhere. The concept of plurilingual and pluricultural competence fitted into this relationship.