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Great, well then I suggest that we just repeat this process whenever a new presidency takes over. Wonder when it's Denmark's turn again - we really missed the opportunity in 2012 by being so darn agreeable all the time.
Only Ireland has English as their primary language of the EU so it makes sense.
Now more seriously, I think what the French are trying to do is just to avoid a complete switch to English in the EU institutions. Since the start of the pandemic, most meetings which used to be multilingual (with interpretation) are now English only and nobody seems to have a big problem with that. If anything, it makes interactions more natural (talking through interpreters is a pain in the ass). French are probably worried that this could be here to stay and are just trying to go back to the status quo.
For everybody but the French, that is.
> that ersatz of the English language, which narrows the scope of one’s thoughts, and restricts one’s ability to express him or herself
And the ability to formulate a new policy with a subtle twist in your favor that no-one gets until it's too late.
Embarrassing.
I'm currently reading a book about the Congress of Vienna and it's amazing that the Russian Tsar argued with the English ambassador in French. Here were all the rich and powerful men of Europe dividing up the continent and there wasn't a single translator needed.
Great, well then I suggest that we just repeat this process whenever a new presidency takes over. Wonder when it's Denmark's turn again - we really missed the opportunity in 2012 by being so darn agreeable all the time.
Are there other countries than Denmark speaking danish in the EU , or elsewhere ?
According to Wikipedia we have:
* Germany: 56% English speakers, 14.5% French speakers
* Italy: 34% English vs. 19.43% French
* Spain: 22% English vs. 11.73% French
* Sweden: 89% English vs. 8% French
I can't get over how bad this decision is. How can you ignore these kinds of discrepancies?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-s...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_distribution_of_F...
Great, well then I suggest that we just repeat this process whenever a new presidency takes over. Wonder when it's Denmark's turn again - we really missed the opportunity in 2012 by being so darn agreeable all the time.
Are there other countries than Denmark speaking danish in the EU , or elsewhere ?