Languages of the European Union

Languages of the European Union
Official language(s) Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish and Swedish
Semi-official;
Catalan, Galician and Basque.
Minority language(s) historical minority or regional languages:
Albanian (Romania[1]), Arabic (Ceuta [2]), Armenian (Cyprus), Berber (Melilla), Breton (France), Corsican (France), Croatian (Austria, Hungary), Cypriot Maronite Arabic (Cyprus), Frisian (the Netherlands, Germany), Friulian (Italy), Luxembourgish (Luxembourg), Occitan (France), Romani (Aut, Ger, Neth, Pol, Rom, Slvk, Slvn, Swe), Russian (Poland), Saami (Finland, Sweden), Sardinian (Italy), Scottish Gaelic (United Kingdom), Serbian (Hungary), Turkish (Bulgaria), Ukrainian, Walloon (Belgium), Welsh (United Kingdom), Yiddish (Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Sweden)
Main immigrant language(s) Russian, Arabic, Turkish, Urdu, Chinese,, and Hindustani; Immigrating EU-languages: Spanish (Hispanic America), Portuguese (Brazil, Lusophone Africa), French (Francophone Africa), English (The Commonwealth).
Main foreign language(s) English, French, German, Russian and Spanish are the most commonly studied and spoken foreign languages.
Sign language(s) Austrian Sign Language, Belgian-French Sign Language, British Sign Language, Bulgarian Sign Language, Czech Sign Language, Danish Sign Language, Dutch Sign Language, Estonian Sign Language, Finnish Sign Language, Finland-Swedish Sign Language, Flemish Sign Language, French Sign Language, German Sign Language, Greek Sign Language, Hungarian Sign Language, Irish Sign Language, Italian Sign Language, Latvian Sign Language, Lithuanian Sign Language, Maltese Sign Language, Polish Sign Language, Portuguese Sign Language, Slovakian Sign Language, Slovene Sign Language, Spanish Sign Language, Swedish Sign Language, Valencian Sign Language.

The languages of the European Union are languages used by people within the member states of the European Union. They include the twenty-three official languages of the European Union along with a range of others. The EU asserts that it is in favour of linguistic diversity and currently has a European Commissioner for Multilingualism, Leonard Orban.

In the European Union, language policy is the responsibility of member states and EU does not have a common language policy; European Union institutions play a supporting role in this field, based on the principle of "subsidiarity", they promote a European dimension in the member states' language policies. The EU encourages all its citizens to be multilingual; specifically, it encourages them to be able to speak two languages in addition to their mother tongue. Though the EU has very limited influence in this area as the content of educational systems is the responsibility of individual member states, a number of EU funding programmes actively promote language learning and linguistic diversity.[3]

According to statistics the most widely spoken mother tongue in the EU is German, while the majority can understand English and speak German, English, Spanish, Italian or French as mother languages.

French is an official language common to the three cities that are political centres of the Union: Brussels (Belgium), Strasbourg (France) and Luxembourg city (Luxembourg), while Catalan, Galician and—in the Baltic states—Russian are the most widely used non-recognized languages in the EU.

Contents

Official EU languages

Sign in the entrance of the European Parliament building in Brussels written in all official languages used in the European Union.

As of 1 January 2007 (2007 -01-01), the official languages of the European Union, as stipulated in the latest amendment of Regulation No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community of 1958, are:[4][5]

Language Official in (de jure or de facto) Since
Bulgarian  Bulgaria 2007
Czech  Czech Republic
 Slovakia1		 2004
Danish  Denmark
 Germany2		 1973
Dutch  Netherlands
 Belgium		 1958
English  Ireland
 Malta
 United Kingdom		 1973
Estonian  Estonia 2004
Finnish  Finland 1995
French  Belgium
 France
 Italy3
 Luxembourg		 1958
German  Austria
 Belgium
 Denmark4
 Germany
 Italy5
 Luxembourg		 1958
Greek  Cyprus
 Greece
 Italy6		 1981
Hungarian  Hungary
 Austria7
 Romania8
 Slovakia1
 Slovenia9		 2004
Irish  Ireland
 United Kingdom10		 2007
Italian  Italy
 Slovenia11		 1958
Latvian  Latvia 2004
Lithuanian  Lithuania 2004
Maltese  Malta 2004
Polish  Poland 2004
Portuguese  Portugal 1986
Romanian  Romania 2007
Slovak  Slovakia
 Czech Republic		 2004
Slovene  Slovenia
 Austria12
 Italy13		 2004
Spanish  Spain 1986
Swedish  Sweden
 Finland14		 1995

The number of member states exceeds the number of official languages, as several national languages are shared by two or more countries. Namely, Dutch is official in the Netherlands and Belgium, French in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Italian province of Valle d'Aosta-Vallée d'Aoste, German in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Italian province of Bolzano-Bozen, and Greek in Greece, Cyprus and the Italian provinces of Apulia and Reggio Calabria. As such, Belgium, Austria, Cyprus and Luxembourg all do not have a unique official language. English and Swedish are also shared, the former by the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta and the latter by Sweden and Finland, but the fact that they are co-official in Ireland, Malta and Finland with languages unique to those countries, namely Irish, Maltese, and Finnish respectively, means that the overall ratio of member states to national languages is unaffected. Also Slovene is official in the easternmost part of the Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia.

Furthermore, not all national languages have been accorded the status of official EU languages. These include Luxembourgish, an official language of Luxembourg since 1984, and Turkish, an official language of Cyprus.

All languages of the EU are also working languages.[5] Documents which a member state or a person subject to the jurisdiction of a member state sends to institutions of the Community may be drafted in any one of the official languages selected by the sender. The reply shall be drafted in the same language. Regulations and other documents of general application shall be drafted in the twenty-three official languages. The Official Journal of the European Union shall be published in the twenty-three official languages.

Legislation and documents of major public importance or interest are produced in all twenty-three official languages, but that accounts for a minority of the institutions′ work. Other documents—e.g. communications with the national authorities, decisions addressed to particular individuals or entities and correspondence—are translated only into the languages needed. For internal purposes the EU institutions are allowed by law to choose their own language arrangements. The European Commission, for example, conducts its internal business in three languages, English, French, and German (sometimes called “procedural languages”), and goes fully multilingual only for public information and communication purposes. The European Parliament, on the other hand, has Members who need working documents in their own languages, so its document flow is fully multilingual from the outset.[6] Non-institutional EU bodies are not legally obliged to make language arrangement for all the 23 languages (Kik v. OHIM, Case C-361/01, 2003 ECJ I-8283).

According to the EU′s English language website,[7] the cost of maintaining the institutions′ policy of multilingualism—i.e. the cost of translation and interpretation—was €1123 million in 2005, which is 1% of the annual general budget of the EU, or €2.28 per person per year.

Maltese

Although Maltese is an official language, the Council set up a transitional period of three years from May 1, 2004, during which the institutions were not obliged to draft all acts in Maltese.[8] It was agreed that the Council could extend this transitional period by an additional year, but decided not to.[9] All new acts of the institutions were required to be adopted and published in Maltese from April 30, 2007.

Irish

When Ireland joined the EEC (now the EU) in 1973, Irish was accorded “Treaty Language” status. This meant that the founding EU Treaty was restated in Irish. Irish was also listed in that Treaty and all subsequent EU Treaties as one of the authentic languages of the Treaties.[10] As a Treaty Language, Irish was an official procedural language of the European Court of Justice.[11] It was also possible to correspond in written Irish with the EU Institutions.

However, despite being the first official language of Ireland and having been accorded minority-language status in the UK province of Northern Ireland, Irish was not made an official working language of the EU until January 1, 2007. On that date an EU Council Regulation making Irish an official working language of the EU came into effect.[12] This followed a unanimous decision on June 13, 2005 by EU foreign ministers that Irish would be made the 21st official language of the EU.[13] However, a derogation stipulates that not all documents have to be translated into Irish as is the case with the other official languages.[14][15]

The new Regulation means that legislation approved by both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers will now be translated into Irish, and interpretation from Irish will be available at European Parliament plenary sessions and some Council meetings. The cost of translation, interpretation, publication and legal services involved in making Irish an official EU language is estimated at just under €3.5 million a year.[16] The derogation will be reviewed after four years and every five years thereafter. Irish is the only official language of the Union that is not the most widely spoken language in any Member State. According to the 2006 Irish census figures, there are 1.66 million people with some ability to speak Irish in Ireland out of a population of 4.24 million, though only 538,500 use Irish on a daily basis (counting those who use it mainly in the education system), and just over 72,000 use Irish as a daily language outside the education system.[17]

Linguistic classification

The majority of the official languages of the European Union belong to the Indo-European language family, the three dominant subfamilies being the Germanic, Romance, and Slavic languages. Germanic languages are widely spoken in central and northern areas of the EU and include Danish, Dutch, English, German, and Swedish. Romance languages are spoken in western and southern regions and include French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish. The Slavic languages are to be found in the eastern regions and include Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, Slovak, and Slovene. The Baltic languages, Latvian and Lithuanian; the Celtic language, Irish; and Greek are also of Indo-European origin. Outside the Indo-European family, Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian are Finno-Ugric languages while Maltese is the only Afroasiatic language with official status in the EU. All official EU languages are written with variations of the Latin alphabet, except Greek, which is written with the Greek alphabet, and Bulgarian, which is written in the Cyrillic alphabet.

No official recognition

According to the Euromosaic study, some regional or minority languages spoken within the EU do not have official recognition at EU level. Some of them may have some official status within the member state and count many more speakers than some of the lesser-used official languages. The official languages of EU are in bold.

In the list, constructed languages or what member states deem as mere dialects of an official language of member states are not included. It should be noted that many of these alleged dialects are widely viewed by linguists as separate languages. These include Scots—the Germanic language descended from Old English, not the Celtic language known as Scots Gaelic—and several Romance languages spoken in Italy such as Lombard, Sardinian, Venetian, Neapolitan, and Sicilian.

Spanish autonomous languages

The Spanish governments have sought to give some official status in the EU for the languages of the Autonomous communities of Spain, Catalan, Galician and Basque. The 667th Council Meeting of the Council of the European Union in Luxembourg on June 13, 2005 decided to authorize limited use at EU level of languages recognized by member states other than the official working languages. The Council granted recognition to “languages other than the languages referred to in Council Regulation No 1/1958 whose status is recognized by the Constitution of a Member State on all or part of its territory or the use of which as a national language is authorized by law.” The official use of such languages will be authorized on the basis of an administrative arrangement concluded between the Council and the requesting member state.[18]

Although Basque, Catalan, and Galician are not nation-wide official languages in Spain, as co-official languages in the respective regions—pursuant to Spanish constitution, among other documents—they are eligible to benefit from official use in EU institutions under the terms of the June 13, 2005 resolution of the Council of the European Union. The Spanish government has assented to the provisions in respect of these languages. Leonese is not official in any Autonomous Community of Spain, and it just holds a “special protection status” by the Castile and León.

The status of Catalan, spoken by over 9 million EU citizens (1.8% of the total), has been the subject of particular debate. On December 11, 1990, the use of Catalan was the subject of a European Parliament Resolution (resolution A3-169/90 on languages in the [European] Community and the situation of Catalan [ OJ-C19, January 28, 1991]).

On November 16, 2005, the President Peter Straub of the Committee of the Regions signed an agreement with the Spanish Ambassador to the EU, Carlos Sagües Bastarreche, approving the use of Spanish regional languages in an EU institution for the first time in a meeting on that day, with interpretation provided by European Commission interpreters.[19][20]

On July 3, 2006, the European Parliament’s Bureau approved a proposal by the Spanish State to allow citizens to address the European Parliament in Basque, Catalan and Galician, two months after its initial rejection.[21][22]

On November 30, 2006, the European Ombudsman, Nikiforos Diamandouros, and the Spanish ambassador in the EU, Carlos Bastarreche, signed an agreement in Brussels to allow Spanish citizens to address complaints to the European Ombudsman in Basque, Catalan, and Galician, all three co-official languages in Spain.[23] According to the agreement, a translation body, which will be set up and financed by the Spanish government, will be responsible for translating complaints submitted in these languages. In turn, it will translate the Ombudsman′s decisions from Spanish into the language of the complainant. Until such a body is established the agreement will not become effective.

Luxembourgish and Turkish

Luxembourgish, the National language of Luxembourg since 1984, but not one of the two official languages (which are French and German), and Turkish, an official language of Cyprus, have not yet used this provision. In response to a written parliamentary question tabled following the June 13, 2005 resolution on official use of regional languages, the U.K. Minister for Europe, Douglas Alexander, stated on June 29, 2005 that “The Government have no current plans to make similar provisions for UK languages.”[24]

Romani

The Romani people, numbering over two million people in the EU,[25] are some of the most disfranchised people in the Union, as neither the Romani language nor any of the Indo-Iranian languages are official in any EU member state or polity. Moreover, Romani mass media and educational institution presences are near-negligible.

Russian

Though not an official language of the European Union, Russian is widely spoken in some of the newer member states of the Union that were formerly in the Eastern bloc. Russian is the native language of about 1.6 million Baltic Russians residing in Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, as well as a sizeable community in Germany. Russian is also understood by most of the ethnic Latvians, Estonians, and Lithuanians, since, as official language of the Soviet Union, it was a compulsory subject in those countries during the Soviet era. Russian may be understood by older people in Central Europe due to compulsory Russian education in the Eastern bloc. It is the 8th most spoken language in the EU and about 7% of all EU citizens speak or understand Russian to some extent.

Esperanto

Esperanto has no official status in any member state. The European party Europe – Democracy – Esperanto seeks however to establish the artificial language as an official second language in the EU.

Migrant languages

A wide variety of languages from other parts of the world are spoken by immigrant communities in EU countries. Turkish is spoken as a first language by an estimated 2% of the population in Belgium and the western part of Germany, and by 1% in the Netherlands. Other widely-used migrant languages include Maghreb Arabic (and others) (mainly in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Cyprus); Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, and Punjabi are spoken by immigrants from the Indian sub-continent in the United Kingdom, while Balkan languages are spoken in many parts of the EU by migrants and refugees who have left the region as a result of the recent wars and unrest there.

There are large Chinese communities in France, U.K., Spain, Italy, and other countries. Some countries have Chinatowns. Old and recent Chinese migrants speak various Chinese dialects, notably Cantonese and other southern Chinese tongues. However, Mandarin is becoming increasingly more prevalent due to the opening up of the People's Republic of China and is also, at least, one of the Chinese language varieties spoken by Chinese immigrants.

There are many Russian-speaking immigrants in Germany,[26] France and United Kingdom

Many immigrant communities in the EU have been in place for several generations now and their members are bilingual, at ease both in the local language and in that of their community. [2]

Languages of the European Union
Language Countries* As mother tongue (percentage of EU population) As language other than mother tongue (percentage of EU population) Percentage of EU population speaking language
English United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta 13% 38% 51%
German Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium, Italy, France, Denmark, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary 18% 14% 32%
French France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Italy 12% 14% 26%
Italian Italy, Slovenia and Malta 13% 3% 16%
Spanish Spain 9% 6% 15%
Polish Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Lithuania and Latvia 9% 1% 10%
Russian Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Greece 1% 6% 7%
Dutch Netherlands, Belgium and France 5% 1% 6%
Swedish Sweden and Finland 2% 1% 3%
Greek Greece, Cyprus and Italy 3% 0% 3%
Czech Czech Republic, Austria and Slovakia 2% 1% 3%
Hungarian Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Austria 2% 0% 2%
Portuguese Portugal 2% 0% 2%
Slovak Slovakia, Czech Republic and Hungary 1% 1% 2%
Catalan Spain, France and Italy 1% 1% 2%

* Countries where the language is spoken as mother tongue, including historical minorities, excluding communities of recent migration. Source: Data for EU25, published before 2007 EU enlargement.

At 18% of the total number of speakers, German is the most widely spoken mother tongue, while English is the most widely spoken language at 51%. 100% of Hungarians, 100% of Portuguese, and 99.5% of Greeks speak their state language as their mother tongue.

The knowledge of foreign languages varies considerably in the specific countries, as the table below shows. The five most used, and spoken second or foreign languages in the EU are English, German, French, Russian, and Spanish, followed by Italian. In the table, boxes coloured light blue mean that the language is an official language of the country; while the main language spoken in the country is coloured dark blue.

Knowledge of English
Knowledge of German
Knowledge of French
Knowledge of Spanish
Knowledge of Italian
Knowledge of Russian
Country
European Union(EU27)		 English
as a language
other than
mother tongue		 German
as a language
other than
mother tongue		 French
as a language
other than
mother tongue		 Spanish
as a language
other than
mother tongue		 Italian
as a language
other than
mother tongue		 Russian
as a language
other than
mother tongue		 Polish
as a language
other than
mother tongue
 Austria 58% 4% 10% 4% 8% 2% 0%
 Belgium 59% 27% 48% 6% 3% 0% 0%
 Bulgaria 23% 12% 9% 6% 1% 35% 0%
 Cyprus 76% 5% 12% 2% 1% 2% 0%
 Czech Republic 24% 28% 2% 0% 1% 20% 3%
 Denmark 86% 58% 12% 5% 1% 1% 0%
 Estonia 46% 22% 1% 0% 0% 66% 0%
 Finland 63% 18% 3% 2% 1% 2% 0%
 France 36% 8% 6% 13% 5% 0% 0%
 Germany 56% 9% 15% 4% 3% 7% 1%
 Greece 48% 9% 8% 1% 1% 3% 0%
 Hungary 23% 25% 2% 1% 2% 8% 0%
 Ireland 5% 7% 20% 4% 1% 1% 1%
 Italy 29% 5% 14% 4% 1% 0% 0%
 Latvia 39% 14% 2% 1% 0% 70% 2%
 Lithuania 32% 19% 1% 0% 0% 80% 15%
 Luxembourg 60% 88% 90% 1% 5% 0% 0%
 Malta 88% 3% 17% 3% 66% 0% 0%
 Netherlands 87% 70% 29% 5% 1% 0% 0%
 Poland 29% 20% 3% 1% 1% 26% 0%
 Portugal 32% 3% 24% 9% 1% 0% 0%
 Romania 29% 6% 24% 3% 4% 0% 0%
 Slovakia 32% 32% 2% 1% 1% 29% 4%
 Slovenia 57% 50% 4% 2% 15% 2% 0%
 Spain 27% 2% 12% 10% 2% 1% 0%
 Sweden 89% 30% 11% 6% 2% 1% 1%
 United Kingdom 7% 9% 23% 8% 2% 1% 1%
 Croatia* 49% 34% 4% 2% 14% 4% 0%
 Turkey* 17% 4% 1% 0% 0% 1% 0%

* Candidate country      Source: [3]

56% of citizens in the EU member states are able to hold a conversation in one language apart from their mother tongue. This is 9 points more than was perceived in 2001 among the 15 member states at the time [4]. 28% of the respondents state that they speak two foreign languages well enough to have a conversation. Still, almost half of the respondents—44%—admit not knowing any other language than their mother tongue. Approximately 1 in 5 Europeans can be described as an active language learner (i.e. someone who has recently improved his/her language skills or intends to do so over the following 12 months).

English remains the most widely spoken foreign language throughout Europe. 38% of EU citizens state that they have sufficient skills in English to have a conversation (excluding the citizens of the United Kingdom and Ireland, the two English-speaking countries). 14% of Europeans indicate that they know either French or German along with their mother tongue. French is most commonly studied and used in Southern Europe, especially in Mediterranean countries, in Germany, Romania, the U.K., and Ireland; German, on the other hand, is commonly studied and used in the Benelux countries, in Scandinavia, and in the newer EU member states. Spanish is most commonly studied in France, Italy, Luxembourg, and Portugal. In 19 out of 29 countries polled, English is the most widely known language apart from the mother tongue, this being particularly the case in Sweden (89%); Malta, an ex-British colony that is also part of the Commonwealth of Nations as well, (88%); the Netherlands (87%); and Denmark (86%). for German and French the situation is similar in three countries. Moreover, the citizens of the EU think they speak English at a better level than any other second or foreign language. 77% of EU citizens believe that children should learn English and that it is considered the number one language to learn in all countries where the research was conducted but the United Kingdom, Ireland and Luxembourg.

All in all, English, either as a mother tongue or as a second/foreign language, is spoken by 51% of EU citizens, followed by German with 32% and French with 28% of those asked.

With the enlargement of the European Union, the balance between French and German is slowly changing. Clearly more citizens in the new member states master German (23% compared with 12% in the EU15) while their skills in French and Spanish are scarce (3% and 1% respectively compared with 16% and 7% among the EU15 group). A notable exception is Romania, where 24% of the population speaks French as a foreign language compared to 6% who speaks German as a foreign language (also 4% of the population speaks Italian as a foreign language, while 3% of the population speaks Spanish as a foreign language).

At the same time the balance is being changed in the opposite direction by the growth of the population of French and the decline of that of German.

It is worth pointing out that language skills are unevenly distributed both over the geographical area of Europe and over sociodemographic groups. Reasonably good language competences are perceived in relatively small member states with several state languages, lesser used native languages or “language exchange” with neighbouring countries. This is the case for example in Luxembourg, where 92% speak at least two languages. Those who live in Southern European countries or countries where one of the major European languages is a state language appear to have moderate language skills. Only 5% of Turkish, 13% of Irish, 16% of Italians, 17% of Spanish and 18% from the UK speak at least two languages apart from their mother tongue. A “multilingual” European is likely to be young, well-educated or still studying, born in a country other than the country of residence, who uses foreign languages for professional reasons and is motivated to learn. Consequently, it seems that a large part of European society is not enjoying the advantages of multilingualism.

Free language lessons (26%), flexible language courses that suit one’s schedule (18%), and opportunities to learn languages in a country where it is spoken natively (17%) are considered to be the main incentives encouraging language learning. Group lessons with a teacher (20%), language lessons at school (18%), “one-to-one” lessons with a teacher, and long or frequent visits to a country where the language is spoken are considered to be the most suitable ways to learn languages.

Working languages

While documents for and communication with citizens are in every official EU language as a right, day-to-day work in the European Commission is based around its three working languages: English, French, and German. Of these English is used most often. Only a handful of Commissioners use a non-English tongue as their working language. This disappoints many in France, and Kristalina Georgieva, who is from Bulgaria, gained a round of applause when she told Parliament she would learn French while in the Commission.[27] Parliament itself translates its proceedings into all official languages, although the actual spoken language of MEPs is often English, so that fellow MEPs can understand them better than if they had the delayed translation. Committee meetings also often default to the language most understood by those attending, as preference over listening to the translation, which is often English or German.

Policy

The European Union ability for legislative acts and other initiatives on language policy is based legally in the provisions in the Treaties of the European Union. In the EU, language policy is the responsibility of member states and European Union does not have a common “language policy.” Based on the principle of “subsidiarity,” European Union institutions play a supporting role in this field, promoting cooperation between the member states and promoting the European dimension in the member states language policies, particularly through the teaching and dissemination of the languages of the member states (Article 149.2).[28][29] The rules governing the languages of the institutions of the Community shall, without prejudice to the provisions contained in the Statute of the Court of Justice, be determined by the Council, acting unanimously (Article 290). All languages, in which was originally drawn up or was translated due to enlargement, are legally equally authentic. Every citizen of the Union may write to any of the EU institutions or bodies in one of the these languages and have an answer in the same language (Article 314).

In the Charter of Fundamental Rights, legally binding since its inclusion in the Lisbon Treaty, the EU declares that it respects linguistic diversity (Article 22) and prohibits discrimination on grounds of language (Article 21). Respect for linguistic diversity is a fundamental value of the European Union, in the same way as respect for the person, openness towards other cultures, and tolerance and acceptance of other people.

Initiatives

Interpretation booths in the debating chamber of the European Parliament (Brussels).

Beginning with the Lingua programme in 1990, the European Union invests more than €30 million a year (out of a €120 billion EU budget) promoting language learning through the Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci programmes in bursaries to enable language teachers to be trained abroad, placing foreign language assistants in schools, funding class exchanges to motivate pupils to learn languages, creating new language courses on CDs and the Internet, and projects that raise awareness of the benefits of language learning.

Through strategic studies, the Commission promotes debate, innovation, and the exchange of good practice. In addition, the mainstream actions of Community programmes which encourage mobility and transnational partnerships motivate participants to learn languages.

Youth exchanges, town twinning projects, and the European Voluntary Service also promote multilingualism. Since 1997, the Culture 2000 programme has financed the translation of around 2,000 literary works from and into European languages.

The new programmes proposed for implementation for the financial perspective 2007-2013 (Culture 2007, Youth in Action, and Lifelong Learning) will continue and develop this kind of support.

In addition, the EU provides the main financial support to the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages, a non-governmental organization which represents the interests of the over 40 million citizens who belong to a regional and minority language community, and for the Mercator networks of universities active in research on lesser-used languages in Europe. Following a request from the European Parliament, the Commission in 2004 launched a feasibility study on the possible creation of a new EU agency, the “European Agency for Language Learning and Linguistic Diversity.” The study concludes that there are unmet needs in this field, and proposes two options: creating an agency or setting up a European network of “Language Diversity Centres.” The Commission believes that a network would be the most appropriate next step and, where possible, should build on existing structures; it will examine the possibility of financing it on a multi-annual basis through the proposed Lifelong Learning programme. Another interesting step would be to translate important public websites, such as the one of the European Central Bank, or Frontex web site also, in at least one other language than English.

Although not an EU treaty, most EU member states have ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.[30]

To encourage language learning, the EU supported the Council of Europe initiatives for European Year of Languages 2001 and the annual celebration of European Day of Languages on September 26.

To encourage the member states to cooperate and to disseminate best practice the Commission has issued a Communication on July 24, 2003, on Promoting Language Learning and Linguistic Diversity: an Action Plan 2004 - 2006 (summary) and a Communication on November 22, 2005, on A New Framework Strategy for Multilingualism (summary).

From November 22, 2004, the European Commissioner for Education and Culture portfolio included an explicit reference to languages and became European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Multilingualism with Ján Figeľ at the post. From January 1, 2007, the European Commission has a special portfolio on languages, European Commissioner for Multilingualism. The post is currently held by Leonard Orban.

EU devotes a specialised subsite of its “Europa” portal to languages, the EUROPA Languages portal.

Notes

1Co-official status in the municipalities in which the size of the minority population meets the legal threshold of 20%.

2Schleswig-Holstein

3Region of Aosta Valley

4Region of South Jutland

5Province of Bolzano-Bozen

6Provinces of Apulia and Reggio Calabria

7Region of Burgenland

8Can be used in local administration along with Romanian in every municipality, city or commune that has over 20% Hungarians.

9Mura region.[31]

10Northern Ireland

11Istria

12Regions of Carinthia and Styria

13Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia

14Official for the state of Finland and in coastal municipalities of the southern coast and southern Ostrobothnia.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Romanian law no. 282/2007
  2. ↑ Council of Europe publishes report on minority languages in Spain Monday 15 December 2008, by Conseil de l’Europe "The Spanish authorities are also encouraged to clarify the status of Galician in Castile and León, Portuguese in the town of Olivenza, Berber in the Autonomous City of Melilla and Arabic in the Autonomous City of Ceuta, and take appropriate steps to protect these languages in co-operation with the speakers."
  3. ↑ EUROPA - Education and Training - Action Plan Promoting language learning and linguistic diversity
  4. ↑ "Consolidated version of Regulation No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community". Europa. European Union. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CONSLEG:1958R0001:20070101:EN:PDF. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Languages of Europe - Official EU languages". European Commission. http://ec.europa.eu/education/languages/languages-of-europe/doc135_en.htm. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  6. ↑ Europa:Languages and Europe. FAQ: Is every document generated by the EU translated into all the official languages?, Europa portal. Retrieved on 6 February 2007.
  7. ↑ Europa:Languages and Europe. FAQ: What does the EU's policy of multilingualism cost?, Europa portal. Retrieved on 6 February 2007.
  8. ↑ http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32004R0930:EN:NOT
  9. ↑ http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32006R1738:EN:NOT
  10. ↑ Taoiseach Website Press Release dated 1 January 2007
  11. ↑ Deirdre Fottrell, Bill Bowring - 1999 Minority and Group Rights in the New Millennium.
  12. ↑ See: Council Regulation (EC) No 920/2005.]
  13. ↑ http://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/gena/85437.pdf Decision made at 667th Meeting of the Council of the European Union, Luxembourg.
  14. ↑ http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32005R0920:EN:NOT
  15. ↑ http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?language=EN&type=IM-PRESS&reference=20050928IPR00827
  16. ↑ EU to hire 30 Irish translators at cost of €3.5 million
  17. ↑ http://www.cso.ie/census/census2006results/volume_9/volume_9_press_release.pdf
  18. ↑ http://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/gena/85437.pdf
  19. ↑ EUROPA-Languages-News-Spanish regional languages used for the first time
  20. ↑ http://www.cor.europa.eu/en/press/press_05_11125.html
  21. ↑ MERCATOR :: News
  22. ↑ Catalan government welcomes European Parliament language move
  23. ↑ European Ombudsman Press Release No. 19/2006 30.11.2006
  24. ↑ House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 29 Jun 2005 (pt 13)
  25. ↑ Ethnologue
  26. ↑ [1] 3,5 mill uses the Russian language in Germany.
  27. ↑ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ba88c07a-1414-11df-8847-00144feab49a.html
  28. ↑ Consolidated version of the Treaty establishing the European Community, Articles 149 to 150, Official Journal C 321E of 29 December 2006. Retrieved on February 1, 2007.
  29. ↑ European Parliament Fact Sheets: 4.16.3. Language policy, European Parliament website. Retrieved on February 3, 2007.
  30. ↑ [http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/ChercheSig.asp?NT=148&CM=8&DF=&CL=ENG European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages CETS No.: 148]
  31. ↑ http://www.hhrf.org/htmh/en/?menuid=0406

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