part ii

European institutions

Language competence and language choice within EU institutions and their effects on national legislative authorities

Jan Kruse & Ulrich AmmonUniversität Duisburg-Essen

The topic of this article is multilingualism and language choice in EU institutions. An analysis of whether the choice of working monolingualism penetrates progressively into the entire community and affects other languages and language use and if so, how this occurs.It comprises different sub-topics and perspectives such as the attitudes of EU officials, external communication of EU institutions with civil society through website presentations, with journalists through press conferences and with the German Parliament by the submission of papers. Also, internal institutional aspects were considered by analysing language choice for contributions in plenary and committee meetings in the EU Parliament and the Commission as well as the commissioners’ language skills. Special attention was paid to the unofficial institutional procedural languages, namely English, French and German, which have emerged in this function. English has gained outstanding prominence in all of the domains analyzed, though this does not seem to be welcome according to the officials’ professed attitudes and EU language policy principles. This research shows, however, that the prominence of English is the political reality, despite the seemingly adverse political will and in spite of the reduction in the number of procedural languages, the extension of interpretation services and the promotion of officials’ foreign language skills. Parliamentarians fear the negative impacts of such a development on the EU’s democracy and legitimacy. In addition, growing monolinguality causes language conflicts with, and within, national parliaments as shown by this research in the case of the German Bundestag. Neither the members of the German Parliament, however, or the EU commissioners seem to consider this a burning issue of EU politics. Finally, this research reveals the potentially positive effects of working plurilingualism in EU institutions as well as the stark discrepancy between the EU’s language policy and its actual language politics. The article is based largely on research planning and guidance by Ulrich Ammon and also research carried out by Jan Kruse and, formerly, Verena Wimmers and Michael Schloßmacher.

Note to the Author: Please confirm the Short Running Head is Okay?

Jan Kruse & Ulrich Ammon

.  Introduction

.  Research questions

The main research focus of this chapter concerns multilingualism in EU insti-tutions:  Does the EU language policy reflect EU reality? More specifically, we investigated whether the choice of working monolingualism progressively pen-etrates into the entire community and effects other languages and language use and if it does, how this is achieved. We therefore analyzed how the working lan-guages, namely English, German and French, are used for internal and external communication in the institutions and what the effects of the disproportional use of the English language are. The research emphasizes the implications of the internal practice of multilingualism for language use in external situations. Subsequently, the consequences for the political actors in the member states are explored in more depth.

The term “working language” is of huge importance for our research. In principle, the official and working languages of the European Union shall be one (of the) official languages of the member states. This is stipulated in the found-ing documents of the Union and is one of its most important language policy principles (European Economic Community 1958). In practice, however, the various institutions have evolved different working language rules (Ammon 2012). Our investigations show that these different internal rules are practically non- existent as agreements in writing. Also missing are recommendations or guidelines for the use of certain working languages. The agreements are oral, informal or non-public; the fact that they are not always as clear as commonly assumed was shown by the discussion about the language regime for the newly established European External Action Service (EEAS) in 2010. The first website of the EEAS and the first internal vacancies in the EU require a knowledge of only English and French and despite the continued opposition of the German Foreign Affairs Ministry, this has not changed.

In most publications, however, the term “(internal) working languages” is used when, in fact, the term refers to those languages which are used for political com-munication within or between EU institutions (cf. Hilpold 2011). In most cases these languages are English, French, German, Spanish and Italian. For this research, it has therefore been assumed that “working languages” basically mean the procedural languages. These languages are meant to be used actively and not only as translation targets. A demonstrable commitment to certain procedural languages seems, how-ever, to be neither possible nor desirable from the political side, since there is no such regulation for the institutions.

Language competence and language choice within EU institutions

.2  Positioning of research questions with respect to current scientific research

The results of our research regarding the handling of certain working languages in the institutions and the attitudes of EU officials reveal the actual politics of language and the effects of the language policy of the EU. There are numerous articles and other publications from different scientific disciplines about the general question of how to establish a fair and efficient language regime for EU institutions (Ammon 2006a, b; 2007, 2009, 2010a, b; de Swaan 2007; Gazzola 2006; Ginsburgh 2005; van Els 2005; Wright 2004). Very scant empirical comparative work about the use of the three pre-eminent working languages, being English, German and French, between different EU institutions, has been presented so far, apart from some partial investigations (e.g. Gehnen 1991; Schloßmacher 1979; Wodak 2011).

A report about the language choice of 25 German-speaking members of the EU parliament (Ollila 2004) was published in 2004. According to these findings 18 MEPs have a command of two or more foreign languages. This research confirms that the foreign language knowledge among EU officials is comprehensive compared with the general population. Nonetheless, the diversity of language knowledge is greater than the diversity of the languages used. This research provides proof as to which languages are actually used in various situations. Furthermore, an out-look on the consequences for national legislative authorities is provided here. The practice of language choice is a result of the language policies, although this prac-tice contradicts the principles of the policies. First and foremost because of this contradiction the results presented here are suitable for a better understanding of language policy implications and consequently this is research which can lead to policy enhancement. Future research can be based on these findings. Addition-ally, this research is a contribution to the tangible specification of an often vaguely discussed state of affairs.

2.  Analytical framework

2.  Theoretical concepts

For this research, the terms fairness and efficiency are of huge importance (cf. Grin 2004; Grin & Vaillancourt 1997). What kind of multilingualism is wished for in the different organizations, and what does real multilingualism look like? How is the rela-tionship between fairness and efficiency evaluated regarding future official and unof-ficial language regulations for internal and external communication? Previous models (cf. Ammon 2006a, 2007, 2009; de Swaan 2001, 2007; van Els 2005; Gazzola 2006)

Jan Kruse & Ulrich Ammon

form the basis for discussion and are the benchmarks for the research and analysis contained in this paper/chapter.

The data collected on oral language choice can be elucidated by using decision theory rules. Theories which can be used to explain language choices for collective decisions are general rules of politeness and efficiency as well as the “minimex rule” by van Parijs (2007) deduced from the field of economics:

[…] the core of the dynamics of language spread under present conditions can be understood as the mutually reinforcing interaction between on the one hand the impact of the probability of using a language on the speed with which it is learned, and on the other the systematic adoption, in communication between plurilinguals, of the language of minimum exclusion (or minimex), i.e. the language best known by the participant who knows it least. (van Parijs 2007: 39).

This implies that the languages used will be chosen according to the highest free-dom of expression level for each individual in a group, which is still in accord with the freedom of expression of the group as a whole. The language choice is such that the individual who is most unsatisfied – in this case the one with the lowest knowledge of English – is still better off than the one who would be most unsatisfied when choos-ing another language that he/she has no command of. Naturally, in the latter case, communication would not be possible. Even when the majority of a group is able to speak another language better than English, but the only foreign language known to one person is English, English will be chosen as the language of conversation. This language could be a language in which nobody is most proficient. Thus, it is not only the level of proficiency that is the decisive factor for language choice, but also the minimum requirement for mutual understanding.

These rules of language choice are in practice more important than the policy of working language diversity. The respondents to the interviews carried out here often point out pragmatic reasons for language choice. Communication partners agree on a certain language, which is more and more often English. French is used less and less and others – among these German, one of the procedural languages of the institutions – are hardly ever used. Similar pragmatic principles of least effort and cost efficiency might apply for the choice of written language next to ideological reasons (cf. Ammon/Kruse c. 2012).

2.2  Research methodology

Different methodological research approaches were applied according to the methods of social science described by Schell/ Hill Esser (2005). The oral contributions of com-missioners have been analyzed by means of quantitative content analysis. This type of analysis is used to evaluate large text and language corpora in which the material is seen as being part of its communication context (Mayring 2000). The evaluation of

Language competence and language choice within EU institutions

the quantitative data which results from the questionnaires used is done by empirical descriptive data analysis. Previous investigations have been made via structured inter-views, written analysis, observations in situ and an analysis of web archives.

The contributions of commissioners in press conferences could be observed sufficiently via video streaming of the website “Audiovisual Services” of the EU commission (ec.europa.eu/avservices, checked 20.01.2011). The videos can be sorted by the name and the date of conference appearance. Although for all contributions the language used is indicated and there is a transcription available, the “Audiovisual Services” do not offer any statistical data about this issue. It is, therefore, not trans-parent which languages are generally used in this kind of conference. To analyse this phenomenon, all contributions had to be observed separately. The results have been sorted by the frequency with which certain languages were used and by the use of languages as mother tongue or foreign language.

The effects on the work with EU submissions in the German Bundestag have been evaluated using a questionnaire. The answers could be given on ordered or interval scales. The form contained questions about the estimated amount and size of EU submissions in English as well as about awareness of the implications of the language used. The results have been evaluated using a descriptive analysis.

Data concerning the language competence of Barroso II commissioners and language training prior to taking up their position was found in public CVs and gathered additionally using a questionnaire. This questionnaire had two questions of which one was formulated according to the language competence question of Eurobarometer studies (eg. European Commission 2005, question D48b-d). Although the CV data are publicly accessible, this comparison provides, in addition, background information which is interesting regarding the conditions of language choice in the analysed fields. These results have also been evaluated using descrip-tive analysis. A problematic issue for the latter two enquiries was the return rate of questionnaires. The subjects questioned said that they were confronted with ques-tionnaire research very frequently, which was a reason for them to answer only very late or not at all.

The reliability of the data collected differs widely. In particular, the measurement of attitudes in general is very context sensitive (Jaespert/Kroon 1998). Attitudes and the use of languages are often bound very closely to the research period. The use of languages in press conferences might thus be strongly influenced by the fact that Spain was then chairing the EU Commission. Preliminary investigations with members of the German Bundestag showed that the answers have all been given according to an earlier published statement from the parliament. Further investigations of language navigation on EU websites, language requirements in job postings and language versions of EU submissions to the Bundestag deliver precise information for the time in which they were investigated.

Jan Kruse & Ulrich Ammon

Altogether, the reliability of all of the findings will be strengthened by possible parallel testing leading to similar results. The mutual relationship between languages used is similar in all fields of research. Even though the research circumstances differ, apart from possible unknown influences, the results of the investigations match for major points. Therefore, it may be assumed that the overall result of the research shows a very high level of reliability.

2.3  Research subject and observables

2.3.  Internal communicationInitial research concerned the attitudes of MEPs and EU officials to the use of work-ing languages. 32 personal interviews were conducted with leading officials of EU language services and MEPs. Furthermore the EU parliament was chosen as a research subject regarding the use of working languages in EP plenary sessions and commit-tee meetings, because the idea of a multilingual Europe has been implemented most extensively in the EP. The observations made here should provide information about how the use of working languages in internal communication affects language use for plenary contributions. Those speakers, who did not talk in their mother tongue (in so far as it is one of the official and working languages of the EU), despite the presence of comprehensively provided interpretation services, have been of particular interest to this research. 600 contributions in plenary sessions in the period 1/3/2009 – 30/5/2009 and committee meetings in the period 1/4/2009 – 30/4/2009 were analyzed.

Another field of research has been the documents of inter-parliamentary delega-tions. Using such delegations, the European Parliament maintains relations with other countries and regions around the globe. During the period of this research, there have been 34 such delegations, which met twice a year with international partners. Their size varied from 12 to 40 delegates. The use of certain working languages within these meetings means international prestige for those languages. In the investigation of the document languages for these delegations, 18 of 34 delegations and altogether 568 documents were analyzed.

For the analysis of the use of languages for EP contributions from commissioners in the period 1/9/2008 – 1/10/2009, all contributions from EU commissioners in the EP have been observed via video stream. They were analyzed specifically in relation to the use of languages by the commissioners. A total of 996 oral contributions by all 27 EU commissioners were evaluated.

2.3.2  External communicationAs part of the external communication, the websites of the Commission and of parlia-mentary groups were analyzed. These sites often do not fulfil the usual claim of a high level of multilingualism. Following a five step classification, over half of the sites must

Language competence and language choice within EU institutions

be evaluated as “severely limited language diversity”. All websites were analyzed using different variables regarding multilingualism.

The investigation of the consequences of such a language regime in practice has been analyzed using EU submissions to the German Bundestag. There are complaints within the Bundestag about the commission submitting important documents only in English, while simultaneously disseminating communications claiming more support for the member states facilitating education in foreign languages other than English (cf. Deutscher Bundestag 2008/2 and 2011). EU submissions from the commission are handed over to the German Parliament and are often not translated. For justifica-tion the EU refers to a communication about the translation regime (Kommission der Europäischen Gemeinschaften 2006), which sets out that appendices and working documents do not have to be translated into EU official and working languages. This includes documents relevant for discussion (“beratungsrelevant”) and, according to information from the Bundestag, perpetually important content such as impact assess-ments and financial budgeting.

Based on this information a survey for the members of the German Parliament was developed to explore whether the political legislative work in committees in Parliament can be based on a sufficient understanding of the relevant documents and, if it can, how? Next to the main survey there was also a pre-survey with 21 MPs, who reinforced the following dissatisfaction as written in official Bundestag printed material:

Der Deutsche Bundestag fordert die Bundesregierung daher auf, […] im Rat darauf hinzuwirken, dass die KOM die Übersetzung sämtlicher Dokumente in die deutsche Sprache sicherstellt, die für die ungehinderte Erfüllung des Mindestauftrags der Deutschen Bundestages in EU-Angelegenheiten erforderlich sind. Dazu gehören auch Anhänge und Arbeitspapiere, die politisch bedeutsame Informationen enthalten […], Politikfolgeabschätzungen, Finanzberichte und Finanzbögen sowie sämtliche EU-Vorlagen, für die seitens des Deutschen Bundestages ein besonderer Bera-tungsbedarf angemeldet worden ist. Die Entscheidung über die Übersetzung soll nicht schematisch nach formalen Kriterien, sondern unter Berücksichtigung seiner politischen Bedeutung getroffen werden. (Deutscher Bundestag 2008/3: 3)

The main issues concern the decision on the need for translations following only formal and no content-related criteria. The MPs said that in the 15th legislative period (status: April 2009) 65 submissions could not be discussed because they were not available in German. Hence they claim that appendices, which contain important information, must be translated to maintain an open and transparent collaboration with the commission. If the recent translation regime does not change, the MPs fear the consequence will be a democratic deficit due to missing translations and a lack of transparency.

The precise amount of non-translated documents for the German Bundestag is, however, not known. The European Unit of the Bundestag (Europareferat) merely

Jan Kruse & Ulrich Ammon

announced that according to an internal estimate of the German Parliament’s administration, the majority of pages of EU submissions to the Bundestag are not translated into German. Regarding the total amount of non-German pages of relevant documents submitted – this is just a fraction of all EU documents which go to the Bundestag – the total number which is not translated could be almost 18,000 pages per year (Europareferat des Bundestages, E-Mail 2010).

The complaints about English language documents show that for MPs it is not part of their regular task to work with documents in English. Also, they feel their national political sovereignty is being interfered with, when receiving EU documents in English. The dominance of the English language as the main procedural language has a certain effect on the work in the German Bundestag. The corresponding con-sequences have been researched in detail by a survey addressed to all Members of Parliament, who work in one of the 20 chosen committees. The questionnaire con-sists of 10 questions about the estimated amount of non-German EU submissions, the handling of foreign language documents in the legislative process and also about the consequences for the awareness levels of parliamentarians. The questions have been developed in cooperation with the European Unit of the Bundestag and the Centre for Higher Education and Quality Development of the University Duisburg-Essen.

We also observed press conferences in order to discover which languages are used for external communication. In contrast to the contributions in the European Parliament, these conferences address the public sphere directly (Ekström 2007). They are, to a high degree, representative and they show the level of importance inherent in the different languages in the EU. Comparing these two investigations it can be determined whether monolingual practice within institutions is visible externally. The commissioners represent the commission not only in relation to content, but also lin-guistically. Moreover, they act as representatives of their specific member states. In the period from January to June 2010, 140 contributions which were published on the commission’s website were evaluated. Via the site European Commission – Audiovisual Services, Videos (http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/video/video_search_en.cfm, checked May, 2010) it was possible to filter conferences involving certain commissioners in a certain period and determine and evaluate the use of languages.

Basically, according to personal information from the Directorate-General for Translation and Conferences, the widest possible range of an interpretation service is made available for these conferences. Limitations are just due to the amount of available interpreting booths. Apart from these architectural limitations, shortages of qualified interpreters for certain languages can be a problem, especially for the “new” working languages. The cost of this standby service for all languages amounts to about 5 million Euro per year. It has therefore been agreed to implement a period of advance notice. For a typical conference period of a couple of days, and notice given up to a week in advance, there can be 14 to 16 languages covered. Regular conferences

Language competence and language choice within EU institutions

can be covered fully. The actual procedural monolingualism in EU institutions was determined in the period of the Barroso I commission (2004–2009). Therefore, it was interesting to address the question as to what level of language proficiency the com-missioners of the Barroso II commission (2010–2014) have and whether they prepared themselves linguistically prior to attaining their new positions.

The commissioners usually indicate their language knowledge in their public CVs. A possible evaluation of this knowledge is easier if a statement is given regarding the language knowledge question from the Eurobarometer surveys. In this case, a comparison of the answers to public statements and the average language knowl-edge of European citizens is possible. Therefore, a survey was conducted for all 27 commissioners.

In the Eurobarometer surveys the language proficiency question is: “Which languages do you speak well enough in order to be able to have a conversation excluding your mother tongue?” The questions to the commissioners have been adjusted accordingly: “Which languages did you speak well enough in order to be able to have a conversation excluding your mother tongue prior to taking up your appointment at the European Commission?” The position-related amendment led to a follow up question: “Did you participate in language training whilst preparing for your new role?”

3.  Results and discussion

3.  Attitudes of MEPs and EU officials towards the use of working languages

The analysis of the data clearly shows the absolute dominance of the English lan-guage for all internal and external communication situations in EU institutions. In the interviews all 32 respondents said that they used English for 70–90% of their internal communication. In meetings without an interpretation service they even estimated that they used English 90% of the time as a procedural language. All parliamentarians observe an increasing use of English as the sole procedural language. This is mainly at the expense of French. German has never been used extensively. The reported fre-quent use of English is being justified on pragmatic grounds. Nevertheless the major-ity of the respondents interviewed are against a reduction of EU working languages and strongly oppose a monolingual regime. Obviously, they fear a cultural hegemony of that member state whose language would be the sole working language. There is consensus about the fact that there will be no change in the official working language regime and the use of procedural languages. This is already unlikely, because the mem-ber states would have to forgo the status of their own languages, which is not domesti-cally enforceable anywhere.

2 Jan Kruse & Ulrich Ammon

3.2  The use of working languages in EP plenary sessions and committee meetings

Even though all plenary sessions will be translated into all official languages, it is essential to the daily work of parliamentarians that they master one of the proce-dural languages of the EU. The three aspects that are critical to the use of languages in the parliament have been accurately described by Sue Wright: first, the need to safeguard the symbolic equality of member states within the Union; second, the need for members of the parliament to be effective; third, the need for all citizens to be able to unserstand what is being debated and decided in their name. (Wright 2007: 161).

This explains why most MEPs in their parliamentary speeches use their official national language; In our case in 88.4% of all 600 contributions analyzed. However, there are members who choose not to use the interpretation service for their lan-guage. This was the case in 11.6% of all speeches. When not choosing their mother tongue, they decided to speak English. This was the language most frequently used by representatives from the new member states. One explanation could be that the languages of the new member states are translated most often via relay interpreta-tion. MEPs from these language origins who speak English directly can be sure that their contribution is translated only once, and that important information will be more authentic. As also confirmed by interview (see Wright 2007) another reason is certainly that parliamentarians of eastern European member states most often find no interpretation service, apart from during plenary sessions. Therefore they are accustomed to speaking English and sometimes French.

3.3  Documents of interparliamentary delegations

Of all 568 documents researched, a maximum of 97% are in English, and of these 53% are in English only. The remaining percentages of all language documents examined are: French 30%, German 23%, Spanish 8%, Italian 3%, all other languages <1%. French and German documents consist mainly of protocols and agendas.

A brief look at some regions shows that English is least used in contact with the countries of Central and South America. Many original documents there are in French or Spanish. Within delegations with participants from Mercosur countries, a remarkable amount of documents are of French origin. No single document is avail-able solely in English, which is very unusual and does not happen within any other delegation studied before.

For the delegation meeting with representatives from Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and the EEA, 120 documents were examined. Although the most common mother tongue in the delegation is German (4 of 13 members) and it is negotiating with a country (Switzerland), where German is an official language, there are no documents

Language competence and language choice within EU institutions 3

in German. They are all in English, 97% in English only. The chairman of the delegation comes from Bulgaria. In the delegation discussing relations with Turkey, all important documents and reports are available only in English. Here, the delegation consists of many Germans and in Turkey the German language is very prevalent. In the delega-tion for relations with Turkey, all important documents and reports are available only in English as well. After all, multilingualism within the documents is associated with the size of delegations: the smaller a delegation is, the lower the diversity of available languages.

3.  Use of languages in EP contributions from commissioners

A total of 996 oral contributions by all 27 EU commissioners were evaluated in the period of September 2008 to September 2009. The corresponding quantitative analysis shows the following:

Language No. of contributions %

English 557 55.92French 167 16.67Italian 61 6.1Czech 57 5.7Greek 55 5.5Deutsch 52 5.22Spanish 44 4.58Portuguese 2 0.2Romanian 2 0.2

Additionally, 18 of 27 commissioners always speak English in the Parliament. This gives the impression that English is very important for the Commission, as if it is the main working language of the commissioners. Some commissioners consistently speak their native language only, which explains the high percentages for Czech, Greek, Spanish, Italian and German. German is spoken only by the German commissioner and in exceptional cases (2) also by the Austrian commissioner. Noticeably, those commissioners who come from larger language communities or from countries with a strong tradition of language cultivation (e.g. Czech Republic) refrain from speaking in English. The President of the European Commission, Mr. Barroso, speaks French often, preferring to select one or the other language rather than code-switching, but he is one of the few who vary in their language use (together with the former Austrian commissioner, Mrs. Ferrero-Waldner).

Jan Kruse & Ulrich Ammon

3.  Websites of the commission and of parliamentary groups

Via the websites, the EU directly communicates with the citizens of its member states. The sites analyzed are those from commissioners, parliamentary groups and inter-parliamentary delegations. The addressees of the website information are, in the terminology of communication science, dispersed inside and outside EU institu-tions. Basically, the websites of the EP parliamentary groups also do not reflect the language diversity as claimed by EU institutions for better information and acceptance of European politics. Far more than a half of the 26 commissioners’ websites are char-acterized by severely limited language navigation. Only the site of the multilingualism commission – which notably, since 2010, does not exist anymore – stood out regarding multilingual navigation (cf. Wodak/Wright 2006).

In relation to the layout, it was obvious that on the starting pages news and links were presented in English. These stood out remarkably, no matter which site lan-guage was chosen. An employee of the commission translation services explained in one interview that, on request, his unit would provide all necessary translation for a diverse multilingual site. This service has to be requested, however. In the European Parliament the MEPs are not grouped into national but political groups. The results of this investigation concerning parliamentary group websites are shown in the table below.

Group URL Navigation barlanguages

Selectable MEPs # Countries #

EVP http://www.epp-ed.eu/ home/en/default.asp

22 bg es cs da de et el en fr it lv lt hu mt nl pl pt ro sk sl fi sv

20, not bg und ro

288 27

PSE http://www.socialistgroup. eu/gpes/index.do?lg=en

4 de es en fr 4 de es en fr 213 25

ALDE http://www.alde.eu/ (EN version)

4 de en fr it 4 de en fr it 101 22

UEN http://www.uengroup.org/ home.html (EN version)

7 da en it ir lv lt pl

1 en 44 6

Greens http://www.greens-efa.org/ index.htm (EN version)

3 de en fr 3 de en fr 42 13

GUE/ NGL

http://www.guengl.eu/ showPage.jsp (EN version)

14 es, cs, da, de, el, en, fr, ga, it, nl, pl, pt, fi, sv

3 en fr es 41 14

ID http://indemgroup.org/ 2 en fr 2 en fr 24 9

Language competence and language choice within EU institutions

Explanations:

– URL: Starting page, resp. language, which is shown, when following a hyperlink from the EP main site to the groups.

– Only the starting pages have been analyzed regarding multilingualism, site inter-nal links have been ignored.

– Mostly, the site titles and all link titles are provided in the mentioned languages, while the content behind is not. This would be worth more extended research.

In both of the larger groups, EVP and SPE, the language navigation bar promised more than it provided. The hyperlinks present in many languages did not necessarily lead to pages in these languages. Consequently, the SPE site showed only four lan-guages. These were the national official languages of 116 of all 213 group members in the following order: French 40, German 29, Spanish 24, and English 23. Italian with 14 and Portuguese with 12 members have not been included for language navigation.

Multilingualism (read: English only) of the former euro-sceptical group ‘Union for Europe of the Nations’ (UEN), with representatives from six countries, was particularly limited. Only three Irish UEN members had English as their national official language. Most representatives came from Poland and Italy. This group stood for strong national sovereignty of the member states, but neglected language diversity.

Remarkably, links from the official EP website to the groups always led to the English language pages. English was, however, the only language provided by all groups. It should be noted that the parliamentary groups are responsible for their own sites and are not bonded to any language regulation whatsoever.

3.  EU submissions to the German Bundestag

The research concerning the effects of multilingual practice for the German Bundestag was conducted with a survey. The MPs in the parliamentary committees, who probably have to work with EU submissions, were asked to take part in the 10-question survey. Of all 27 actual committees, 20 were chosen, representing 526 of all 622 members of the 17th German parliament. 80 questionnaires were filled in and returned, which is a response rate of 15.2%. 14 parliamentarians actively refused to take part in the survey.

The answers to the question regarding the amount of English language EU submissions do not give reliable results. The parliamentarians are not sure about the precise number of those but they have an idea that it is less than 25%. Similar results are shown by the answers to the question about how many EU submissions are sent back for re-translation. Here, as well, the answers are spread widely and the mean devi-ation is far above average. The control question about the document language shows that they are generally English. To be able to evaluate these answers, more precise

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counts from the parliamentary administration would be necessary. In a recent letter to Commission President Barroso the parliamentarians claimed to receive about 90 % of all submissions for the most part in English (Deutscher Bundestag 2011).

According to the Bundestag’s administration it might not be possible in each case to investigate the reasons why EU submissions are rejected (Friedemann Schmidt, Deutscher Bundestag, personal e-mail 07.02.2011). Next to language issues, other administrative or political reasons are possible. In 16 of the 22 permanent committees, missing or incomplete translations are no obstacle to discussion, the European Unit of the Bundestag reports. Five committees see a general obstacle to discussion when German language versions are missing and they refuse to discuss those documents. What the political effects of this reaction are cannot be said offhand and it is unknown whether rejection only takes place for less important submissions. Re- translation hardly ever takes place. The Commission does not call for full re-translation and nei-ther can it be done by parliament itself as unauthorized translation cannot be politi-cally justified by the EU.

The respondents have the opinion that good to very good language knowledge is needed to be able to understand the submissions. None of them said that less or little knowledge would be sufficient.

In the second part of the survey the parliamentarians were asked about their handling of non-German submissions. The majority said that they did not or just seldom read them (59.7%) while just a third of them said that they read these docu-ments regularly, albeit not all of them. Of those respondents who said that they did not read or scarcely ever read English language submissions, 23 (29.9 % n = 77) said that they always or often missed important content. Since these submissions contain relevant information for discussion, which is obligatory in the process of national law making, it can be assumed that the obligation to co-operate in the democratic process of legislation suffers from the fact that the legislator does not always read the prelimi-nary texts. It is said behind closed doors, however, that representatives do not always read the preliminary texts, even in German, for example if they are too long or too complex. Finally, almost half of those members of parliament who read the English originals rarely, if ever, claim to carry out their work in its entirety all or most of the time. Nearly a third of all representatives could still do their work properly without always reading the relevant EU submissions. In fact, 29.6% said that they exercised their duties fully although they missed important content due to English language submissions.

Most of the representatives do not agree with the statement that English should be the only language used in EU institutions or throughout the EU, because this would have a negative effect on the standing of German in the EU. Of the 7 respondents who do agree with this statement 3 consider that missing German translations would have a negative effect on the said standing while 4 people do not believe this. From the

Language competence and language choice within EU institutions

10 respondents, who do agree partly or in full with the statement that English should be the only language throughout the EU, 7 consider that missing German translations would have a negative effect on the international standing of German. 3 people do not believe this however.

On the other hand, our analysis does show that the parliamentarians do work with English language submissions, even though many of them cannot fulfil their tasks completely and they are convinced that having English as the EU working language disadvantages the status of German in Europe (cf. also a 2006, b, 2007, 2010a, b).

3.  Use of languages in commissioners’ press conferences

The observation of 134 press conferences during the period from January to June with a total of 140 contributions from commissioners has shown that language use in press conferences follows the same pattern as was already observed for speeches by the Commissioners in the European Parliament. The commissioners from France, England, Ireland and Italy hold their conferences in their supposed mother tongue, while all others use the English language. Exceptions to the rule are the President of the European Commission, Mr. Barroso, the German commissioner, Mr. Öttinger, who speaks English and German and the Spanish commissioner, Mr. Almunia, who speaks English and French. It emerged that the commissioners from the Eastern European countries – with only one exception – exclusively use the English language. In none of the observed cases was the procedural language, German, used as a foreign language. French was only used as a foreign language by two commissioners. This is an appar-ent contradiction of the diversity of working languages and it is an indication that the contribution of language policy efforts to this diversity is less fruitful than the eulogies on the blessings of EU multilingualism would suggest.

The comparison with the commissioners’ speeches in the European Parliament shows an evident contrast regarding the frequency of English language use. In the EP the supposed mother tongues are used much more often.

The emerging trend wherein only English, French and Spanish are used as a foreign language will continue. Considering the language use of Commission President Barroso as a special case of multilingual presentation, French as a foreign language is only used by Romanian commissioner, Mr. Cioloş and the Belgian, Mr. van Rompuy, whose origin allows us to assume a special affinity with French. The use of Spanish as a foreign language in relatively many cases could be explained by the fact that Spain then held the council presidency. English is used by all other eastern European com-missioners and the German commissioner.

English is therefore the only language which is used as a foreign language regardless of biographic particularities. The Italian, French, British, Maltese and Irish

Jan Kruse & Ulrich Ammon

commissioners only use their supposed mother tongue. In the 140 contributions in the period from January to June 2010 the following languages were used (in percent):

90%100%

80%70%60%50%40%30%20%10%

0%EN FR DE

Languages

Use of languages in press conferences (%)

Perc

ent

IT ES

Foreign languageLanguages total

Mother tongue

The following figure shows a comparison of press conference and parliamentary contributions in relation to the use of languages specifically.

90%80%70%60%50%40%30%20%10%

0%EN FR DE

Languages

Comparison of press conferences andparliamentary contributions

Perc

ent

IT ES

Press conferencesEuropean parliament

It is apparent that in external communication (press conferences) English is used more often than for internal EP contributions. As those conferences are usually held directly after negotiations, it can be assumed that the language of negotiation is used. This is an example of what was discovered earlier from the interviews mentioned: The decision to use a certain language is pragmatic because the language which was prob-ably used shortly before (in negotiations) has not been changed.

To achieve representative results, however, the observation period and the amount of observed conferences must be bigger. Furthermore, the contributions in

Language competence and language choice within EU institutions

this current case should be weighted because the fact that the number of contributions from each commissioner is not equal is not taken into account. Weighting the current results would also not make enough sense, because for some commissioners only one or two press conferences were made available.

3.  Commissioners’ language knowledge

The evaluation of the official information in the commissioners’ CVs shows that all 27 commissioners have a command of English (25 as their second, 2 as their first language), 24 have a command of French (23 as their second, 1 as their first language) and 14 have a command of German (12 as their second, 2 as their first language). If foreign language competence is looked at in isolation, it is evident that:

– In 3 cases French is not mastered – In 13 cases German is not mastered – there are no cases in which a commissioner has a command of German, without

being able to speak French as well – in 9 cases French is mastered, but not German – In 12 cases French and German are not mastered

16 of the 27 commissioners speak at least 3 foreign languages and 8 of them speak 2. The commissioners, Johannes Hahn (AU), Michel Barnier (FR) and Catherine Ashton (GB) only have a command of one foreign language. These results are shown in the following figure:

25

30

20

15

10

5

0

–5

–10

–15EN FR DE

Languages

Language knowledge (27 commissioners)

Freq

uenc

y

Foreign languageMother tongue

Not as foreign language

Among the most striking results is that there are no cases where a commissioner has a command of German without being able to speak French as well. This confirms other findings which show the prominent status of French compared with German.

Jan Kruse & Ulrich Ammon

French has been mastered by nearly all commissioners, but is only used marginally more often than German. Better proficiency statistics, as is the case for French in this study, do not seem to have a proportional effect on actual language use. This also confirms the statements of EU officials that the decision to use a certain language is pragmatic in nature as described above.

Only very few commissioners took language classes prior to taking up their new position. It must be assumed, therefore, that most of the commissioners think that their command of languages will be sufficient. In contradiction to the official information, a zero competence level is specified in the survey for German in three cases and for French in two cases. The following figure contains the survey results (responses n = 13) in comparison with the official information:

14 13 1312

10

8

5

12

10

8

6

4

2

0EN FR DE

Comparison of public cvs and survey

N =

13

Public cvsSurvey

.  Pointers for future research

In this chapter, we were able to illustrate that language diversity represents an obstacle to effective politics within the EU institutions that, in fact, multilingualism is reduced to one central and a few lesser-used supranational languages. The language diversity of the EU with its 27 official and working languages is being reduced to three procedural languages. Only one of them, English, is actually being used on a large scale. French and German are some distance behind.

Another important finding from our research is the discrepancy between pol-icy and politics regarding language regulations. All research analysis carried out here shows a similar tendency towards a monolingual regime, although the research methods employed here were different and the target groups and political institutions more diverse. For all people who participated in these investigations, a diversity of procedural languages was stipulated, but it was implemented to a far lesser extent. The

Language competence and language choice within EU institutions

dynamics of increasing monolingualism within EU institutions is not contrasted with the dynamics of political intention. The change of the use of languages for internal and external communication is not a result of strategic policy decisions, but of short-term pragmatic reactions. Within these decision-making processes, the politicians and officials do not seem to have the chance to abide by policy. This behaviour even affects other institutional areas, where representatives do not have the freedom to make the same pragmatic choices. Such areas are the national parliaments. The perception of politics seems to follow principles which are outside of policy development.

We argue that the observed discrepancy between policy and politics is related to the linguistic development of the EU and the respective pragmatic and economic implications. It must be said, however, that this underestimates the fact that the pre-dominant use of English leads to considerable costs for most member states or indi-viduals (Laitin 1996: 65), which have not been calculated so far. Future research should go deeper into the possible difficulties caused by the use of English for politics as well as into the opportunities a transparent procedural language policy could offer.

With regard to this research, it will be necessary to investigate further the relation-ship between policy and politics in this field in order to explore what it is that motivates the confirmed discrepancy. Another aspect which is unexplored and unknown is which language regime would be useful regarding different policy contents. Although there is extensive information about the regulation of the EU translation regime, these rules are often not followed. Future politico-linguistic research could be based on the analysis of the conditions under which multilingual policy can be harmonized with the reality of language use and thus could be more successful.

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