Languages of the European Union

The languages of the European Union are languages used by people within the member states of the European Union (EU). The EU has 24 official languages, of which three (English, French and German) have the higher status of 'procedural' languages of the European Commission (whereas the European Parliament accepts all official languages as working languages). One language (Irish) previously had the lower status of 'treaty language' before being upgraded to an official and working language in 2007, although it has been temporarily derogated as a working language until 2021 due to difficulty finding qualified translators. The three procedural languages are those used in the day-to-day workings of the institutions of the EU. The designation of Irish as a 'treaty language' meant that only primary legislation (the treaties) was to be translated into Irish, whereas secondary legislation (Directives and Regulations) did not have to be. The EU asserts that it is in favour of linguistic diversity. This principle is enshrined in the EU Charter (art. 22) and in the Treaty on European Union (art. 3(3) TEU). 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 native language. 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. The most widely spoken language in the EU is English, which is understood by 51% of all adults, while German is the most widely used mother tongue, spoken by 18%. All 24 official languages of the EU are accepted as working languages, but in practice only two – English and French – are in wide general use and of these English is the more commonly used. French is an official language in all three of the cities that are political centres of the Union: Brussels (Belgium), Strasbourg (France) and Luxembourg City (Luxembourg). As of 1 July 2013, 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: The number of member states exceeds the number of official languages, as several national languages are shared by two or more countries in the EU. Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, and Swedish are all official languages at the national level in multiple countries (see table above). In addition, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Slovak, and Slovene are official languages in multiple EU countries at the regional level. 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.