EU Information >> EU Languages

The languages of the European Union are languages used by people within the member states of the European Union. They include the twenty official languages of the European Union (with Irish due to gain this status on 1 January 2007) along with a range of others. The EU asserts on its English language homepage: "languages: Europe's asset".

EU policy is to encourage all its citizens to be multilingual; specifically, it encourages them to be able to speak two languages in addition to their mother tongue. A number of EU funding programmes actively promote language learning and linguistic diversity, but the EU has very limited influence in this area as the content of educational systems remains the responsibility of individual Member States.

According to the EU's English language website, the cost of maintaining its policy of multilingualism is €1.123 billion, which is 1% of the annual general budget of the EU, or €2.28 per person per year.

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The official languages of the European Union, as stipulated in EEC Council: Regulation No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community of 1958-04-15 (as amended)  are

• Czech
• Danish
• Dutch
• English
• Estonian
• Finnish
• French
• German
• Greek
• Hungarian
• Italian
• Latvian
• Lithuanian
• Maltese
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Slovak
• Slovene
• Spanish
• Swedish

Further languages are due to become official languages of the European Union:

• On January 1, 2007:
  • Irish

• On the accession of Bulgaria and Romania:
  • Bulgarian
  • Romanian

All languages of the EU are also working languages. 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 official languages. The Official Journal of the European Union shall be published in the twenty official languages.

Legislation and documents of major public importance or interest are produced in all 20 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, 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

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There has been a suggestion in an official briefing that the implicit principle for official languages of the European Union is that each member state can put forward at most one official language ('one member state, one language'). This has not been confirmed in documents.

The Spanish and Irish governments have sought the status of 'official' EU languages for Basque, Catalan-Valencian, Galician, and Irish. The 2667th Council Meeting of the Council of the European Union in Luxembourg on 13 June 2005 decided to authorise limited use at EU level of languages recognised by Member States other than the official working languages. Besides making Irish the 21st official language, the council also granted recognition to "languages other than the languages referred to in Council Regulation No 1/1958 whose status is recognised by the Constitution of a Member State on all or part of its territory or the use of which as a national language is authorised by law." The official use of such languages will be authorised on the basis of an administrative arrangement concluded between the Council and the requesting Member State.

Turkish as well as Greek is an official language of the Republic of Cyprus, but was not adopted.

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Besides the languages of Ireland, Spain and the UK (see above), there are other regional languages spoken within the EU that do not have official recognition at EU level (although they may have some official status within the member state). Some of these count many more speakers than some of the lesser-used official languages.

These include:

• Belarusian (in Poland)
• the regional languages of France
• Frisian
• Languages of Italy
• Kashubian
• Ladin
• Friulian
• Limburgish
• Low German
• Luxembourgish
• Mirandese
• Russian
• Sami languages
• Sorbian languages
• Minority languages in Sweden
• Languages in the United Kingdom
  • Scottish Gaelic
  • Welsh
  • Scots & Ulster Scots
  • Cornish
• Walloon
• Yiddish

The Katharevousa variant of Greek is no longer official.

Although not an EU treaty, some EU member states have ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

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The proposed (and later rejected) European constitution was officially available in the 21 official languages, and the languages of three candidate countries: Romanian, Bulgarian, and Turkish. The version approved by the European Parliament for ratification by the Member States contained the following provision:

Article IV-448(2): This Treaty may also be translated into any other languages as determined by Member States among those which, in accordance with their constitutional order, enjoy official status in all or part of their territory. A certified copy of such translations shall be provided by the Member States concerned to be deposited in the archives of the Council.

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