Languages of the European Union

Official languages of the institutions

The official languages of the institutions of the European Union are

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

The primary working languages of the institutions are English, German and French, but other languages are used as befits the situation, and interpretation to any official language is arranged as needed. There have been moves by the Spanish to introduce their language as primary working language, but they have not been able to achieve consensus. The 1995 and 2004 expansions of the union to countries where French is less practiced, have strengthened the position of English and German as working languages. All decisions by the institutions are translated to all official languages, and European citizens may contact the institutions in any official language. Interpretation between all official languages is always arranged for sessions of the European Parliament and the European Council.

Additional languages for treaty and other purposes

Irish

The Irish language has official status for treaty purposes; that is, all treaties are published and authentic in Irish as well as the official languages of the institutions. This limited status of the Irish language has provoked a great deal of debate in Ireland, as Irish is constitutionally the first language of that state.

The Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, during the Irish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, addressing the newly-convening European Parliament (2004 to 2009) on 21 July 2004, opened his remarks thus:

A Uachtaráin Borrell, A Uachtaráin Prodi, a Chomhaltaí Onóracha de Pharlaimint na hEorpa, agus a dhaoine uaisle.

Tá an-áthas orm a bheith anseo inniu ag an gcéad Seisiún Iomlánach den suí nua de Pharlaimint na hEorpa. Ba mhaith liom an deis seo a ghlacadh le comhghairdeas a dhéanamh le gach comhalta nua ó na fiche cúig Ballstát den Aontas Eorpach ar a dtoghadh an mhí seo caite i bhfeidhmiú an ghnímh daonlathais osnáisiúnta is mó riamh sa domhan. Is maith an rud daoine a bhí anseo cheana a fheiceáil in aontas le daoine nua a bheith i láthair.

(President Borrell, President Prodi, Honourable Members of the European Parliament, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very pleased to be here today at this first Plenary session of the new European Parliament. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all Members, from across the twenty-five Member States of the European Union, on their election last month in the greatest supranational exercise in democracy that the world has ever known. It is good to see familiar faces and new faces alike.)

Mr President, I see that some Members are having difficulty receiving their Irish language interpretation. Perhaps when Irish is fully recognised in Europe we will have one difficulty less.

Following this, Marian Harkin MEP of Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, and Mary Lou McDonald MEP and Bairbre de Brún MEP of Sinn Féin (European United Left - Nordic Green Left) also opened their remarks in Irish.

Catalan

On 11 December 1990, the European Parliament passed resolution A3-169/90 on languages in the (European) Community and the situation of Catalan (OJ-C19, 28 January 1991), which

4. Calls on the Council, comprised of representatives of the Member States, and the Commission to take whatever steps are necessary to achieve the following objectives:

• the publication in Catalan of the Community's treaties and basics texts;
• the use of Catalan for disseminating public information concerning the European institutions in all the media;
• the inclusion of Catalan in the programmes set up by the Commission for learning European languages;
• the use of Catalan by the Commission's offices in its written and oral dealings with the public in the Autonomous communities in question; [...]

Provision in the Constitution

The draft European constitution is available in the 20 institution languages plus Irish, and the languages of three candidate countries: Romanian, Bulgarian, and Turkish.

The version agreed to by the European Council contains the following provision:

Article IV-10(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.

Spain, for example, may take advantage of this paragraph to provide certified translations of the Constitution in Catalan, Basque and Galician.

Other European Languages

As well as the Spanish languages and Irish there are several other languages spoken within the EU that do not have official recognition on the EU level. These include the Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, the regional languages of France, Luxembourgish, Frisian, Ladin, Mirandese, and the Sami languages.

Demography

Official languages of the Union spoken as mother tongue and as foreign language:

Language	Proportion of population of the EU speaking it as a mother tongue	Proportion of population of the EU speaking it NOT as a mother tongue	Total proportion speaking this language
German	24%	8%	32%
French	16%	12%	28%
English	16%	31%	47%
Italian	16%	2%	18%
Spanish	11%	4%	15%
Dutch	6%	1%	7%
Greek	3%	0%	3%
Portuguese	3%	0%	3%
Swedish	2%	1%	3%
Danish	1%	1%	2%
Finnish	1%	0%	1%

Note: This table relates to the older 15 Member States of the European Union (source: European Commission).