In attending several conferences organized by European Union institutions, I have been surprised by the extent to which official communication occurs in English. A back-of-envelope history follows.
After World War II, there was little prospect of German being the European language. The Romance languages got off to a strong start with France, Belgium and Italy as founding members of the European Economic Community. Spain and Portugal provided some reinforcement in 1986.
English got in the game in 1973, with Britain and Ireland joining the Community. The Nordics have been another pro-English force, with Denmark also joining in 1973, followed by Sweden and Finland in 1995.
But what really put English over the top was the European Union’s enlargement since 2004 to include Eastern Europe, which is overwhelmingly more interested in learning English than French. And founding members like Germany and the Netherlands are presumably happy enough to watch the tide turn in favour of another Germanic language.
The upshot is that a guy from Saskatchewan can get off a plane and start engaging European political institutions with greater ease than the vast majority of European citizens. Of course, it also helps to speak French, which is still a secondary language at European Union events.
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