NEW – the “Speakers’ Corner”
Beginning with this edition of our newsletter, the “speakers’ corner” is intended to provide a space where anyone can express an individual opinion which does not necessarily have to be the official opinion of Generation 2004. Please send us your contributions for coming editions.
The somewhat inconsistent sprachenpolitik dans les institutions européennes – a politically incorrect proposal for refurbishing the tower of Babel – by “the rock” from Ispra
One of the lesser known features of the 2004 staff regulations reform was the introduction of what is commonly known as the third language requirement. In the beautiful prose of the legislator, it is stated that “officials shall be required to demonstrate before their first promotion after recruitment the ability to work in a third language among those referred
to in … the EC Treaty.”
In the corresponding recital, the legislator informs us that the requirement had been introduced “in order to preserve the multilingual character of the institutions”. Of course, you may wonder how multilingual the institutions really were at the time. After all, much of the case law of the European Court of Justice for instance has only recently been translated into other languages. But that’s a side issue, since if wishful thinking was a crime, most parliaments would be rather empty.
So what should concern us now is whether after 10 years of service, this provision has done any good. How multilingual have the institutions really become? On the face of it, very much so, one might think. If ever a blueprint was needed for constructing a new tower of Babel, just take the institutions and their tremendous efforts to translate trainloads of documents into most of the official languages day after day; and of course, thanks to several enlargement rounds, more languages than ever before can now be heard in the corridors and in the canteens. Add to that the thousands of colleagues who are learning additional languages and things seem to look absolutely marvellous indeed. The problem is they don’t, not really.
In truth, and this article is testimony to it, English has become the lingua franca of the institutions. Whilst the Commission’s staff complement is arguably more linguistically versatile than ever and the third language requirement has certainly played a role in this, English is de facto the only working language. All of “Brussels” is under AngloSaxon control, except maybe for one or two DGs of indomitable Gauls that still hold out against the Britons (or at least their tongue). But complete surrender is just a matter of time unless some magic potion will be invented and it is perhaps rather ironic that this happens at a time when Britain leaving the Union is a realistic possibility. But then history has never bothered with irony hasn’t it?
Although it is nowhere stated explicitly, the third language requirement has arguably been introduced to protect the dominance of French in the institutions from the onslaught of thousands of colleagues from the East who happily embraced the language of the free world (and McDonalds) as the most useful linguistic tool on offer. After all, try your French in a Café in Paris and chances are high that the waiter responds in English (or some such … désolé). So, by giving preference to no language in particular (doing so would have been politically unfeasible), the provision did not stop the advance of English. In fact, it is likely to have promoted it because it prevented any other option from being considered.
Here is one such option (sincere thanks to an unknown German professor from the Sorbonne who suggested it some years ago during a meeting of the Goethe-Institut in Brussels): Every new official should be required to learn English, French and German. At least one of these three languages should also be mastered to a very high level so as to be
able to draft official documents in that language and express him/herself as clearly as possible. For the other two languages, the requirement would be to understand both languages perfectly including, if necessary Shakespearian vocabulary, German tapeworm words and the nuances of the French subjoncitif … but not to speak or write it flawlessly.
In addition, officials would be encouraged to learn any other language for which there is a need in the institutions, be it Arabic, Mandarin or Russian for that matter (for native speakers of the above three languages, this could even become mandatory).
The advantages of such a language regime are obvious: the institutions would become really trilingual instead of de facto monolingual. Language training could be tailor-made and thus become more effective than in the past while language skills could be applied more often in practice. After all, all three languages could be used for communication since everybody would understand them. Moreover, everyone could speak the language s/he would be most familiar with, having the choice among three options rather than at most two like today. This would make life also easier for the listeners who less often had to cope with funny if not incomprehensible accents and strange grammar. Last but not least, important non-EU languages could be promoted without having to increase the language training budget.
Whilst at first glance, favouring just three languages may appear to be politically incorrect, doing nothing, by default, means favouring just one. It’s a tough choice, but it’s probably alternativlos to slightly abuse a quote from the German chancellor.
