The false multilinguality of the EU

An Esperanto congress that recently took place in Slovenia prompts Vinko Oslak to reflect on the languages of the EU: "Today there are around 6,000 languages worldwide. The EU has 23 official languages, for which 300 translations are necessary. This accounts for 30 percent of the EU's total administration costs. In concrete figures that adds up to just under a billion euros. However that billion euros guarantees the equality of all EU languages only on paper. In linguistic reality we have a situation similar to that under the Hapsburg Empire, where German was the dominant language. In the EU English is the dominant language today."

» full article (external link, Slovenian)
More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Religion, » Weltanschauung, » Europe
All available articles from » Vinko Ošlak

» To the complete press review of Monday, August 6, 2007