Voting on the choice of core languages in the European Union

Jan Fidrmuc, Victor Ginsburgh and Shlomo Weber ()

European Journal of Political Economy, 2009, vol. 25, issue 1, 56-62

Abstract: Extensive multilingualism is one of the most important and fundamental principles of the European Union (EU). However, a large number of languages (currently 23) hinders communication and imposes substantial financial and legal costs. On the other hand, the reduction of the number of languages would disenfranchise some or many EU citizens. We use the results of a survey on languages and argue that even though a linguistic reform reducing the number of languages is unlikely to gain sufficient political support today, this may change in the future since young people are more proficient at speaking foreign languages.

Keywords: Languages; Disenfranchisement; European; Union; Linguistic; standardization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Working Paper: Voting on the choice of core languages in the European Union (2009)
Working Paper: Voting on the choice of core languages in the European Union (2009)
Working Paper: Voting on the Choice of Core Languages in the European Union (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:25:y:2009:i:1:p:56-62

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