Two EU Officials remove the Union Jack flag from the atrium of the EU Council headquarters
There are many questions being asked about the European Union’s future after the departure of the United Kingdom last week. One of the most curious concerns language.
For two decades, English has been the ‘lingua franca’ of the European Union institutions in Brussels - a common language EU policymakers use to communicate with one another about laws regulating subjects like energy, security and trade.
This is a situation that reflects the use of English across Europe as a whole. As of 2012, a majority of EU citizens (51%) could speak English, either as a first or second language. It was the only language that could realistically be used as a mode of communication, given that only 32% can speak German and 26% can speak French. The proportion speaking English has likely gone up since 2012 - the last year a survey was conducted by Eurobarometre, the EU’s statistics agency.
Most of those speakers were not native. While the U.K. was a member, 13% of EU citizens were native speakers of English. As of the 1 February Brexit Day, this number has dropped to just 1%.
But remarkably, despite British people having lost their EU citizenship, the overall number of EU citizens who can speak English has only dropped to 44% - if we apply the 2012 data to the EU’s new population. English is still the most spoken language in the EU by far, with German now spoken by 36% of citizens and French spoken by 29% of the EU’s new smaller population of 446 million people. Italian comes fourth at 18%, followed by 17% for Spanish.
Since these numbers use the 2012 survey as a basis, it is safe to assume that the English figure is actually much higher given that levels of English proficiency have risen rapidly across the continent among young people since then. The English figure is probably closer to 50%, while the figures for other languages likely haven’t changed. Eurobarometre is due to conduct a new language survey soon.
French efforts
Though French President Emmanuel Macron and former Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker have suggested that French should be used more frequently in the EU institutions after Brexit, the numbers do not suggest that this is likely to happen.
The EU has 23 official languages, but only three of these are considered ‘working languages’ - English, French and German. In theory, daily business should be conducted in these three. In reality, only the first two are used. Germans, not known for their language pride, have never pushed for German to be used as a common language in the EU institutions. The French, on the other hand, have long complained about the use of English and usually demand every press conference and press release be made in French as well as English - despite the fact that French has been ranked third both for native speakers and for language knowledge.
It wasn’t always this way. Before 2004-2007, when ten countries in Eastern Europe joined the bloc, French was the lingua franca at the EU institutions in Brussels. But other than in Romania, few people in Eastern Europe speak French. Eastern Europeans mostly speak English as a second language, as Eastern education systems had made it mandatory for young people from the end of Communism. It was the Eastern European expansion that turned Brussels’ EU Quarter into an English-speaking town.
The power of American movies, television and music likely has more to do with the proliferation of English across Europe than education, particularly when it comes to people under 40. Europeans want to be able to understand the American content that is part of their regular media diet - a phenomenon some in Europe call “cultural imperialism”.
The origin of this phenomenon never had anything to do with the British, it was due to American influence. But EU civil servants, particularly those from France, often grumbled that it gave the British an unfair advantage in EU policy-making. Even if it did, anyone in Brussels would observe that they never took advantage of it. The British always showed little interest in being a big player on the EU stage.
Today, almost all conferences in Brussels are conducted in English and rarely offer interpretation. It is the language EU national leaders use when they have casual chit-chat during EU summits, though they will often rely on interpreters when it gets down to the delicate negotiations. Members of the European Parliament frequently make their interventions in English even though it is not their mother tongue. After Brexit, English will continue to be used frequently in the Parliament.
Oddly enough, there is now an open question about whether English is even an official language of the EU any more. There are two member states left which have English as an official language - Malta and Ireland. But each has registered their other language, Maltese and Irish (Gaelic) respectively, as their official language for EU purposes.
English will likely remain the lingua Franca of EU lawmaking and the majority language of EU citizens even if it is no longer an official language of the EU. It is a reflection of how much English has evolved beyond being just a language that belongs to any country or countries in particular. It is now an international means of communication, one that doesn’t belong to any country. And Brexit, even with all the profound changes it will have for the EU, is unlikely to affect this.
