The European Union has 24 official languages. They are Bulgarian,
Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French,
German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese,
Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish and Swedish. So
there are fewer official languages than the member states, as some of
them share the same language. For example, in Belgium, the official
languages are Dutch, French and German, or in Cyprus, the official
language is Greek.
However, only few working documents are translated into all
languages. The general procedural languages are English, French and
German. English is the most common one from these. The European
Parliament provides translation into different languages according to
the need of its members. The members have the right to use any of the
EU´s official languages when speaking in Parliament. French is an
official language common to the three political centres of the EU:
Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg. Catalan, Galician and Basque are
regional languages that have an official status in the EU.
People living in the EU have access to all EU documents in the
official language of their country. They also have the right to write to
the Commission, and receive a reply in the same language.
Multilingualism is central to the EU´s cultural diversity. The EU
encourages its citizens to be able to speak two other languages in
addition to their mother tongue. Multilingual citizens can take an
advantage of the educational, professional and economic opportunities
created by the integrated Europe. The most widely spoken mother tongue
in the EU is German and the biggest number of the EU citizens can
understand English.
With a permanent staff of 1750 linguists and 600 support staff, the
European Commission has one of the largest translation services in the
world. The Commission´s interpretation service employes 600 staff
interpreters, 3000 freelance interpreters and 250 support staff.
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