The use of English as a supranational language in European institutions

As Europe is made up of independent nation states, it is normally at that level that the official language policies governing public life are defined. In fact, other entities compete with them. We have seen the situation in the multinational companies. International organisations such as the United Nations, the Council of Europe, NATO, the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe) and the European Union have been set up since the second world war.

The powers and resources conferred on the EU give it a real supranational power. We must therefore examine the extent to which this supranational power is also exercised in linguistic matters.

Languages of the European Union

The EU Treaties are relatively silent about linguistic matters. The 1957 Treaty of Rome confines itself to delegating to the Council of Ministers the task of drafting rules governing the languages of the institutions. These rules, which were adopted in 1958, state that when a new country joins, its official language shall become an official and working language of the Community institutions.

These rules have been applied automatically upon each new accession. The linguistic arrangements apply in their entirety to the circulation of official documents, i.e. those adopted by the decision-making bodies, which are translated into the official language of each of the Member States prior to being circulated within them. They also apply, albeit in a variable way, to political representation on the Council (representatives of national governments) and to the Parliament.

Substantial resources are allocated to the language service. However, the linguistic rules do not apply to in-house communications, which are governed by rules of procedure that give preference to two chief vehicular languages, English and French. German is generally designated as a third language but is little used.

French continued to dominate in the internal communications of the institutions from their foundation in the 1950s until the mid-1970s. English was introduced as a vehicular language in the 1970s. However, French remained the main language until the early 1990s. Several studies carried out at that time stressed this French predominance (Fosty, 1985; Gehnen, 1991; Schlossmacher, 1994). The most commonly advanced reasons are that French was the language most common to the six founding countries (the official language in three of them, a widely taught foreign language in the others), that the United Kingdom was not a member of the Six and that the main institutions were situated in Brussels and Luxembourg. Factors such as the strong representation of French-speakers (Belgian, French and Luxembourger) in the administration and French investment in ensuring the continued use of French should not be overlooked. Within the institutions they like to speak of an "organisation culture" but no study has been done to analyse its nature. The organisation of the administration along French lines and the existence of a hierarchical authority partly based on the use of French may explain this continued dominance, but this is only theory.

The introduction of English as a vehicular language coincides more with the increasing influence it has exerted on international communication in Europe than with the accession of the United Kingdom and Ireland in 1973. English was initially used in sectors such as the economy, technology and science. Its share expanded gradually, slowly at first and then faster and faster from the end of the 1980s. The chief data available for assessing the trend are the proportions of primary texts (languages in which documents sent for translation were originally drafted) produced in each of the vehicular languages.

The case of the European Commission, the main producer of documents out of all the institutions (over a million pages per year), is the most revealing.

 

Languages of primary texts produced by the European Commission in % (Truchot 2001)

	French	English	German	Other
	38.5	44.7	5.1	11.7
	40.4	45.3	5.4	8.9

 

This table shows the rise of English and the relative fall of French in written use over a 14-year period. In fact, during the 1980s and 1990s the factors favouring English continued to accumulate. Among them were the effects of internationalisation of the economy and of globalisation resulting in the use of English in the chief fields falling within EU competence, the spread of English teaching and the expansion in knowledge of the language, the training of new generations of diplomats and officials in American and British universities or in English-language faculties in Europe and the enlargement of the EU in 1995 to embrace countries where English is in common use.

It is conceivable that diplomats and officials who have a much better mastery of English than French have difficulty in accepting a power system where French occupies a substantial place and would prefer to replace it with another based on the preponderance of English. However, French is still very present, with a certain form of bilingualism appearing to be the rule in the institutions (Wright, 2000).

Supranational uses

A 1991 study (Labrie, 1993) showed that for communication among themselves 63% of Commission officials used French and 33% English. However, for contacts with officials or experts from the Member States, the figures were 22% French and 31% English for oral communication and 6% French and 59% English for written communication.

Vast areas of semi-internal and external communication have opened up and are continuing to grow with the implementation of the Single Act in 1993, the extension of responsibilities as a result of the Treaties of Maastricht in 1992 and Amsterdam in 1997, the enlargement of 1995 and that anticipated over the next few years.

The European Commission wields an increasing number of administrative and managerial responsibilities: single market, common agricultural policy, programmes. These areas of communication usually fall outside the official linguistic arrangements and even the internal arrangements. The actual linguistic practices in those areas are not very well known but English is believed to be very widely used. This happens with the increasingly numerous working meetings attended by representatives of the Member States. It also happens in the case of meetings of experts: the institutions organise some 4,000 meetings every year, 75% of which do not have simultaneous interpretation.

Many reports are commissioned from consultants, who are generally asked to work in English. Programmes, too, tend to be administered in English. For relations with non-member countries, French is used with French-speaking Africa, Spanish with Latin America and English with large parts of the rest of the world. Relations with the institutions of individual states are normally conducted in the languages of those states. Because of the time needed for translation, however, the primary texts are often circulated just as they were drafted, in French and English. Reports by experts and consultants circulate in the language in which they were drafted.

English is not a mandatory supranational language. But there is a tendency to make it so. This is very clearly the case in the EU institutions despite genuine efforts to encourage plurilingualis m. In the many other institutional co-operation bodies which are appearing in Europe it is found that use of that language is regarded as automatic, even though no other mode of communication has been investigated. Thus, in Eurocorps (the intergovernmental body for military co-operation) in Strasbourg, communications not involving the command of troops tend to be conducted in English although the question has never actually been discussed. Generally speaking, it is English that is used in administering the aid and assistance programmes for the central and eastern European countries.

Observers have also remarked that English enjoys a special status in the international operations in the former Yugoslavia. As Gret Haller, the ambassador and mediator in Bosnia, has pointed out on the strength of her experience there, no one listens to what you say if you do not speak English because English is the language of power and, by speaking another language, you show you have no power (Council of Europe, 2001). It is therefore reasonable to suppose that the tendency to use English as a lingua franca is not motivated by practical considerations alone.

 

Suggested questions for the round-table discussion:

􀂃 What do you think are the main problems of lecturing in a foreign language?

􀂃 What kind of problems do students encounter when communicating with each other through a lingua franca?

􀂃 Are the problems lingua franca speakers face generally problems of grammar (syntax), vocabulary or pronunciation?

􀂃 Do you think speakers in lingua franca settings get irritated by issues that do not interfere with communication?

􀂃 Do you think people in lingua franca settings have prejudices against any aspects of each other’s English?

􀂃 Do students’ language backgrounds matter when they are assigned group-work projects? Is this relevant and should it be taken into consideration?

􀂃 How can we ensure that teachers’ and students’ language skills are adequate for English-medium education?

􀂃 What type of remedial work can be carried out for lecturers and students who operate in lingua franca settings?