Official languages of the European Union
In the European Union , 24 languages are currently recognized as official and working languages . The language question was determined by the first regulation ever issued by the EEC (for the text of Regulation 1/1958 see below). The legal basis for the regulation is currently Art. 342 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU): "Regulating the language issue for the organs of the Union is unanimously adopted by the Council through regulations, without prejudice to the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union."
According to Art. 24 TFEU, all EU citizens have the right to address the EU institutions in one of the 24 languages mentioned in Art. 55 of the EU Treaty and to receive an answer in the same language. In addition to these official languages, there are numerous minority languages such as B. Catalan or Basque in Spain or Russian in the Baltic countries. The EU declares that it will respect and respect languages and linguistic diversity.
Of the official languages, English , French and German are the main working languages used in internal communication within the EU institutions , in order to facilitate communication between the staff of the European institutions. Due to the high proportion of non-native speakers who use English in the EU, some typical peculiarities in grammar and vocabulary have emerged, which are known as Euro English .
List of official languages
| language | Official language of the EU and in EU member state (s) |
Regional or minority language in an EU member state |
IATE - abbreviation |
Official language since |
Name of the EU (abbreviation) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bulgarian |
 Bulgaria
|
 Greece Romania Hungary 
|
bg | 2007 | Европейски съюз (ЕС) |
| Danish |
 Denmark
|
 Germany Sweden
|
there | 1973 | The Europæiske Union (EU) |
| German |
 Belgium Germany Luxembourg Austria  
|
Belgium Denmark France Italy Croatia Poland Romania Slovakia Slovenia Czech Republic Hungary       
|
de | 1957 | European Union (EU) |
| English |
 Ireland Malta
|
en | 1973 | European Union (EU) | |
| Estonian |
 Estonia
|
 Latvia
|
et | 2004 | Euroopa Liit (EL) |
| Finnish |
 Finland
|
Sweden
|
fi | 1995 | Euroopan unioni (EU) |
| French |
Belgium France Luxembourg
|
Belgium Italy
|
fr | 1957 | Union européenne (UE) |
| Greek |
Greece Cyprus
|
Italy Hungary
|
el | 1981 | Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση (ΕΕ) |
| Irish |
Ireland
|
ga | 2007 (*) | To tAontas Eorpach (AE) | |
| Italian |
Italy
|
France Croatia Malta Slovenia
|
it | 1957 | Unione europea (UE) |
| Croatian |
Croatia
|
Italy Austria Romania Slovenia Hungary
|
Mr | 2013 | Europska unija (EU) |
| Latvian |
Latvia
|
 Lithuania
|
lv | 2004 | Eiropas Savienība (ES) |
| Lithuanian |
Lithuania
|
Latvia Poland
|
according to | 2004 | Europos Sąjunga (ES) |
| Maltese |
Malta
|
mt | 2004 | Unjoni Ewropea (UE) | |
| Dutch |
Belgium Netherlands
|
France
|
nl | 1957 | Europese Unie (EU) |
| Polish |
Poland
|
Latvia Lithuania Romania Slovakia Czech Republic Hungary
|
pl | 2004 | Unia Europejska (UE) |
| Portuguese |
 Portugal
|
pt | 1986 | União Europeia (UE) | |
| Romanian |
Romania
|
Bulgaria Hungary
|
ro | 2007 | Uniunea Europeană (UE) |
| Swedish |
Finland Sweden
|
Finland
|
sv | 1995 | Europeiska unionen (EU) |
| Slovak |
Slovakia
|
Croatia Austria Poland Romania Czech Republic Hungary
|
sk | 2004 | Európska únia (EÚ) |
| Slovenian |
Slovenia
|
Italy Austria Hungary
|
sl | 2004 | Evropska unija (EU) |
| Spanish |
 Spain
|
it | 1986 | Unión Europea (UE) | |
| Czech |
Czech Republic
|
Croatia Austria Poland Romania Slovakia
|
cs | 2004 | Evropská unie (EU) |
| Hungarian |
Hungary
|
Croatia Austria Romania Slovakia Slovenia
|
hu | 2004 | Európai Unió (EU) |
(*) Contract language since 1973
Official languages in Member States with no official status in the EU
| language | Official language in the Member State | Name of the EU (abbreviation) |
|---|---|---|
| Luxembourgish |
Luxembourg
|
European Union (EU) |
| Turkish |
Cyprus
|
Avrupa Birliği (AB) |
Official languages in EU candidate countries
| language | Official language in the candidate country | Name of the EU (abbreviation) |
|---|---|---|
| Albanian |
 Albania North Macedonia
|
Bashkimi Evropian (BE) |
| Macedonian |
North Macedonia
|
Европска Унија (ЕУ) |
| Montenegrin |
 Montenegro
|
Evropska unija / Европска унија (EU / ЕУ) |
| Serbian |
 Serbia
|
Европска унија (ЕУ) |
| Turkish |
 Turkey
|
Avrupa Birliği (AB) |
Semi-official languages of the European Union
The following languages are neither working nor contractual languages of the European Union, but can be used for correspondence with the EU institutions.
| language | Official language in the region | Country | Name of the EU (abbr.) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basque |
 Basque Country Navarre
|
Spain
|
Europar Batasuna (EB) |
| Galician |
 Galicia
|
Spain
|
Unión Europea (UE) |
| Catalan |
 Balearic Islands Catalonia Valencia .svg){kind=small}
|
Spain
|
Unió Europea (UE) |
Working and contract languages
Of the official languages, English , French and German are the main working languages used in internal communication between the institutions in order to facilitate communication between the staff of the European institutions.
The contracts ( EU treaty , AEU treaty and EURATOM treaty ) are also drafted and binding in all of the official languages specified in Article 55 of the EU treaty. The Irish language , which was only the contractual language , was not used as an official language until 2007 . It was not until Bulgaria and Romania joined the country that Irish was added as an official language alongside the languages of these two countries.
Regulation regulating the language issue
Regulation No. 1 regulating the language issue for the European Economic Community
“The Council of the European Economic Community has, based on Article 217 of the Treaty [Note: now Article 342 TFEU)], according to which the regulation of the language issue for the institutions of the Community is unanimously decided by the Council without prejudice to the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice that each of the four languages in which the Treaty is drawn up is the official language of one or more Member States of the Community, adopt the following regulations:
- article 1
- The official and working languages of the Community institutions are German, French, Italian and Dutch. [Note: As part of the accession treaties, additional official languages have been added here. In 2005, Irish was added to the list by regulation.]
- Article 2
- Documents sent by a Member State or a person under the jurisdiction of a Member State to Community institutions may be drawn up in one of the official languages at the choice of the sender. The answer must be given in the same language.
- Article 3
- Documents which an institution of the Community sends to a Member State or to a person under the sovereignty of a Member State must be drawn up in the language of that State.
- Article 4
- Regulations and other documents of general application are drawn up in the four official languages.
- Article 5
- The Official Journal of the Community is published in the four official languages.
- Article 6
- The Community institutions may lay down in their rules of procedure how these rules on languages are to be applied in detail.
- Article 7
- The language question for the proceedings of the Court of Justice is regulated in its Rules of Procedure.
- Article 8
- If a Member State has more than one official language, the use of the language is determined at the request of that State in accordance with the general rules based on its law.
This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States. "
The languages became the official language with the accession of the respective state. The Irish, however, only by order of the Council has been recognized on 13 June 2005 as the official language of the EU. However, the regulation did not come into force until January 1, 2007. Versions of the Treaties on Luxembourgish there is not, however, as the Luxembourg until 1984 National and administrative language of Luxembourg was declared and laws are written there to this day only in French. The government of Luxembourg renounced the status of an official EU language for Luxembourgish.
Demographics
According to the Eurostat study The Europeans and their Languages , which was carried out from November to December 2005 in the then 25 Member States of the European Union and published in February 2006, the following picture emerges of the most widely spoken languages in the Union according to the self-assessment of the respondents ( EU 25):
| language | Official language in the Member State | spoken as mother tongue (proportion of the population) | spoken as a foreign language (proportion of the population) | Total speakers in the EU (proportion of the population) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| German | 18% | 14% | 32% | |
| English | 13% | 38% | 51% | |
| French | 14% | 14% | 28% | |
| Italian | 13% | 3% | 16% | |
| Spanish | 9% | 6% | 15% | |
| Polish | 9% | 1 % | 10% | |
| Romanian | ||||
| Dutch | 5% | 1 % | 6% | |
| Croatian | ||||
| Bulgarian | ||||
| Greek | 3% | 0% | 3% | |
| Swedish | 2% | 1 % | 3% | |
| Czech | 2% | 1 % | 3% | |
| Portuguese | 2% | 0% | 2% | |
| Hungarian | 2% | 0% | 2% | |
| Slovak | 1 % | 1 % | 2% | |
| Catalan | 1 % | 1 % | 2% | |
| Irish | <1% | 3% | 3% | |
| Russian | 1 % | 6% | 7% |
According to the Eurobarometer survey carried out from May to June 2005, the figures differed in some cases.
- Language skills in the EU
German
English
French
Spanish
Italian
Russian
Introduction of a uniform official language
The introduction of English as an administrative and then as an official language in the European Union's sub-states was discussed. According to a representative YouGov survey from 2013, 59 percent of Germans would have welcomed it at that time if the English language had achieved the status of an official language in the entire European Union (in addition to the previous languages); in other European countries the approval rates were partially at over 60 percent.
The planned exit of the United Kingdom from the EU ( Brexit ) gave new impetus to the discussion about a uniform official language, but it also shifted away from English to other languages that are often spoken in the EU. Due to the loss of the United Kingdom as a net EU contributor , the not insignificant administrative cost center for translations into and from 24 official languages for all documents came back into the discussion as an argument.
See also
literature
- Peter Cichon, Michael Mitterauer (ed.): European languages (= studies on politics and administration . Volume 103 ). Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 2011, ISBN 978-3-205-78608-5 .
- Markus A. Kürten: The importance of the German language in European Union law. An examination of the current and future possible significance of the German language in the EU (= writings on European law . Volume 105 ). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-428-11395-0 (also dissertation at the University of Cologne , 2002/2003).
- Sandra Nißl: The language question in the European Union. Possibilities and limits of a language policy for Europe (= Linguistics and Literature Studies . Volume 38 ). Utz, Munich 2011, ISBN 3-8316-4078-5 (also dissertation at the University of Munich 2011).
- Gerald G. Sander : The future of the language regime in an enlarged European Union . In: Gerald G. Sander, Ivo Maryška (Ed.): The European Union facing new challenges. Constitution - eastward expansion - world trade . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 2005, ISBN 3-631-52596-6 , pp. 59-71 .
Web links
- EU Administration - Staff, Languages and Locations European Union website
- Frequently asked questions about multilingualism in the EU Memo of the European Commission
- Language regulation in EU bodies European Lexicon of the German Federal Government
Individual evidence
- ^ Sandra Mollin: Euro-English: Assessing Variety Status . Gunter Narr Verlag, Tübingen 2006, ISBN 382336250X , p. 6.
- ↑ Regulation No. 1 regulating the language issue for the European Economic Community . In: Official Journal of the European Communities . No. 17, October 6, 1958, pp. 385-386.
- ↑ Regulation (EC) No. 920/2005 of the Council of June 13, 2005 amending Regulation No. 1 of April 15, 1958 regulating the language issue for the European Economic Community and Regulation No. 1 of the Council of April 15, 1958 to regulate the language question for the European Atomic Energy Community and to introduce temporary exemptions from these regulations . In: Official Journal. L 156, June 18, 2005, pp. 3-4.
- ^ Sandra Nißl: The language question in the European Union. Possibilities and limits of a language policy for Europe. Munich 2011, ISBN 3-8316-4078-5 , p. 77.
- ↑ European Union: Special Eurobarometer - Europeans and their languages. (PDF file, 6.77 MB, accessed November 25, 2010).
- ↑ EUROPEANS AND LANGUAGES ( Memento from January 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (last accessed on January 26, 2010):
- ↑ Survey: Majority of Germans for English as the second official language , YouGov opinion research institute, August 9, 2013.
- ↑ on this topic: Jutta Limbach : Plea for multilingualism in the European Union. versus Jürgen Gerhards : Plea for promoting the lingua franca of English. published by the Federal Agency for Civic Education on January 17, 2012 here
- ↑ Plea for only one official EU language - EURACTIV.de. Retrieved November 24, 2017 .