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SAYS STEPHEN SPURDON
The European Union (EU) has now expanded so far as to truly represent what is generally thought of as the continent of Europe, and enlargement this year will bring the number of member states to 25. Those who choose to stay on the outside include Switzerland and Norway, but most of the rest want to come in.
While the EU has all the appearance of a super-state, encompassing all major facets of government, the real focus is still on economics and trade. Indeed the original guise of the EU was the European Steel and Coal Community – established by the Treaty of Paris in 1952, which was the immediate precursor of the European Economic Community, which then became the European Community, then after the Maastricht
Treaty, the European Union.
Money talks
The natural development of economic union has led to the adoption (again as a result of the Maastricht Treaty) of a European single currency – the euro. This eases the process of business transactions of all kinds after the initial one-off costs of making the change. In return, the area covered by the currency benefits from the elimination of exchange costs and a harmonisation of prices.
But there is another cost in performing these transactions: language translation. Unless you have a common understanding of the meaning of a transaction, it cannot take place. That is similar to imposing the cost of currency exchange. Surely one language would do the trick, and not a dead one like Latin, but a live and lively one such as English.
So what is the current status of English in the EU? Before the recent expansion of the EU to the east, English was one of 11 official languages, and the proportion of the EU speaking English as their mother tongue was 16% – hardly a strong case. Adding this figure to the proportion of EU citizens who have English as their second language, though, brings the total to 47% of the EU population. The only other language close to this is German with 32%.
According to a Eurostat poll, 69% of EU citizens say English is the “most useful” language to know apart from their mother tongue. French comes second with 32%, and German third with 26%.
In Europe, then, English has the leading position. But what of English in the rest of the world? According to the English- Speaking Union (ESU) it is the dominant – and usually the only – language in 30 countries, with the most recent estimates stating that 377 million speak it as a first language.
As a percentage of the world’s population, this means that 6.2% have English as their mother tongue, second only to Chinese. There are 70 countries where English is the official or joint official language, which takes in a further 300 million people.
Finally, there is the position of people who speak English as a foreign language. Again, the ESU states that there are no official figures, but that estimates range from 300-750 million. No other European language has anywhere near this reach, and as the EU is a trading bloc it is a point to bear in mind.
Post enlargement
The EU has now taken in Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. This means that after May’s enlargement there will be 20 languages for the EU to cope with. What will that cost?
The EU does monitor the costs of translation for its institutions. Already some 700-800 interpreters work every day translating between the 11 languages, and each new member state will require between 120 and 130 interpreters. However, EU officials are only required to speak one of English, French or German.
Eurostat reckons that the cost of interpretation and translation services is €2 a year per head of population in the pre-May 2004 membership – a total annual budget of €700 million. The addition of the ten new official languages is estimated to increase costs by ten cents per citizen.
As of January 1, 2004, the estimated population of the EU was 380.8 million and 74.1 million in the acceding countries. That makes a total population of 454.9 million. If the estimate of €2 per person for translation is correct, then that means the cost for EU institutions will be nearly €1 billion a year.
But that’s just the 'official’ cost. As yet there are no figures available showing the expense throughout the 11 member states of translation costs between companies and other bodies not part of EU institutions. Doing business throughout Europe in 2004 could mean translating one document into as many as 20 languages.
Common sense
Many people in Europe see the argument for a common currency as sound common sense – regardless of how it is actually working in practice. The argument for a common official language is equally compelling. But, of course, language is an even more emotive issue than currency.
The vibrancy of Europe is mainly due to its diversity. I am not arguing here for the destruction of other languages. Rather I am seeking to encourage closer links and a more common feeling between people. The purpose of the EU is to bring people together, so Europe will speak with one voice. Having English as the official language would mean they could do so at long last.
Stephen Spurdon is a personal finance journalist who writes for The Independent, The Sunday Telegraph and the Investors Chronicle, among others.
SAYS ROSIE CARR
From May this year, there will be 25 EU member states and 20 official languages. Documents and legal papers will have to be translated into everything from Latvian and Lithuanian to Polish and Greek. It’ll all cost millions of euros and thousands of working hours. But suggesting that English should be made the sole official language of the EU is a daft idea.
There are several reasons why. The first reason is that according special status to one language above another will destroy political harmony – the cents and minutes saved would not be worth the high price we’d have to pay. Language is a politically sensitive issue and officially sidelining 19 'less important’ languages will never be acceptable.
A third way?
France is already threatened by the wide use of English in the EU, and has instructed its officials not to conduct meetings in English or to speak English in them. As a result of pressure from France, the European Commission has agreed that it is not right to allow English to become the de facto official language and is spending millions of euros teaching its employees a third language to try to stop this domination.
One Euro MP has condemned the programme as a 'mad idea and a waste of money’. Many will agree with his view but the programme is proof that promoting English will only lead to further resentment and costly backlashes against its usage.
A second reason comes from the question 'Why English?’. Time and money could just as well be saved by making French the working language. After all, the three founder members of the European Union – France, Belgium and Luxembourg – are all French speaking. And France is at the heart of Europe, unlike the UK which is at best lukewarm when it comes to displaying commitment to the union.
Or what about German? There are more native German speakers in the EU than there are French, and German is a popular choice as a second language.
And if translating every document and finding interpreters who can speak rare combinations of languages all proves too costly or unworkable following enlargement, a better solution would be to appoint three or four official languages chosen simply on the basis of the greatest number of speakers. This would put an end to silly campaigns such the one recently launched by the Irish. Ireland is an English speaking nation but has a few thousand speakers of Gaelic. Even since it joined the EU more than 30 years ago, Ireland has accepted English as its official language. But now the Irish, furious because their native tongue has been ruled out as an official language while Maltese, with a similar number of speakers has been allowed in, have launched a campaign demanding that Gaelic should be made an official language. And there’s a good chance the campaign will succeed.
Destruction
A third reason why English should not be the EU’s official language is that the European Union was not created to destroy our wonderfully diverse different cultures. Yet stamping out its citizens’ right to speak in their first language in all EU meetings and business exchanges would be a giant step along that road. Our different languages are part and parcel of that diversity. They reflect the way we live and think and any move to increase usage of English would be harmful.
Elevating English to the position of the sole official EU language would mean that Russian, German and French would all cease to be taught as second languages to millions of Europeans. When we reach that point, with everyone speaking a pidgin Euro-English either as a first or second language, other native languages will start being relegated to the dustbin.
In Malta, where Maltese and English are recognised as official languages, most people are bilingual. English is used for business and in higher education while Maltese is used in everyday life and conversations. But experts warn that the Maltese are losing their ability to speak 'standard’ Maltese and English and instead are using a jumble of both languages.
The EU’s translation budget isn’t even one of its biggest areas of spending – it spends about €700 million a year on translation costs and that sum will rise to about €1 billion after enlargement. But that’s a drop in the ocean compared to the billions being spent keeping farmers idle.
And democracy?
But say English did make the leap to single official language, what would be the next step? To make sure that everyone in Europe speaks only English? If we are prepared to go as far as making English the official language of the EU, then why not insist that everyone in the EU use English in their daily lives? After all, think of the time and money that could be saved if national governments did not have to teach everyone English...
And if cost is the reason for making such a drastic change, then why should we bother with democracy? Allowing hundreds of elected members to have their say while eating up time and costing us money? A dictatorship would be much cheaper.
Rosie Carr is deputy editor of Investors Chronicle magazine. She has written extensively on investment and business and contributed to several publications including the Daily Express and Financial Times.
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