Every language is an official language in the EU. Member state representatives speak in the official language of their country, and this will soon be translated into 23 other official languages, when Croatian becomes an official language next month.

When a new country joins the European Union, the member state is required to stipulate which language or languages are to be declared an official language of the EU.

Currently the EU has 23 official languages. Croatian will become the EU’s 24th official language when the country joins the union on July 1, 2013.

Language translation in the EU’s headquarters is a complicated – and often costly – business. The European commission has three official “procedural languages”: German, French and English.

But with the union expanding and 23 languages now spoken in member states, the number of language translators has ballooned from 200-300 to 2,000-3,000. It is estimated that the EU produces 1.76 million pages of translation work a year, costing €300 million. And when Croatia joins the EU, there will be one more language to add to the pile.

You might ask yourself then, when most, if not all, EU bureaucrats speak English, what’s the point in maintaining 23 official languages, especially at such expense? Why not just use a single language — English?

“It’s tempting of course. With English you get through everywhere in the whole world,” said Andrea Dahman, head of communications for the Translation Unit of the European Commission. “On the other hand, I’m always saying, if you want to do business you’ve got to speak the language of the client.”

As the EU enlarges, critics of the multilingual system are becoming more vocal.

“We’re spending too much time and energy on this language issue,” said Shada Islam, director of policy at Brussels think-tank Friends of Europe.

“The world is moving fast, the world is moving ahead and we need to be looking at other ways of fostering diversity and inclusiveness. You do really need to have a common understanding and I think that’s where English came in as the natural language that everyone spoke,” she said.

But the idea of establishing English as the language of the EU is politically toxic. France and Germany are very touchy when it comes to having their languages eclipsed by English. What’s more, EU officials argue using any single language wouldn’t be democratic, or in the shared spirit of the union.

“Europeans believe, or at least they think they should believe, very much in diversity and in inclusion and that everyone is equal,” Islam said. “It’s an artificial mental set up, if you like. Everyone is not equal. There are big powers, there’s Germany, there’s France … so we’re not all equal.”

To learn more about the European Union, please visit their official website.

By Alex Dupont
Marketing Communications Specialist
Language Translation Inc.
See Also

Translation is the act of rewriting a document, changing it into another language. The original language is called the “source” language. The language into which the source text is translated is called the “target” language.
It is estimated that the European Union produces 1.76 million pages of translation work a year, costing approximately €300 million.

European Union prepares to adopt 24th official language as costs mount, calls for English rise
In the European Union, every language is an official language. Government officials speak in the official language of their country, and those comments are then translated into 22, soon to be 23, other languages.