The official languages of the European Union are the languages of official communication from the institutions of the European Union.

These languages, the number of twenty-three, count the German , the English , the Danish , the Spanish , the French , the Finnish , the Greek , the Italian , the Dutch , the Portuguese and Swedish , which is are added on ¹May 2004 the Estonian , the Hungarian , the Maltese , the Latvian , the Lithuanian , the Polish , the Czech Republic , the Slovak and Slovene , then ¹ January 2007 , the Bulgarian and Romanian. Since ¹ January 2007 , the Irish ( Gaelic ), which had previously the status of "treaty language" became the ^23rdofficial language of the Union .

Three of these languages are used as working languages within the Commission , it is the English , the French and the German . Also, the deliberate of the Court of Justice of the European Union are in French (though the judgments are necessarily published version of the case). As for the European Central Bank , it operates in English only .

At the time of its accession to the Union, each country determines which one (s) of its national languages it wishes to be used as the language (s) official (s). The full list of official languages is then approved by all governments. It thus includes at least one of the national languages of each country. The Irish had not opted for the Gaelic (or Irish ) at the time of its accession, however, the first national language. Practical considerations (less than 200 000 people) had restricted its use to the translation of treaties (special status). The guidelines are not yet translated into Irish Gaelic. Spain did the same with the Catalan , the Basque or Galician. Some states now fear that other minority languages (the Russian in Estonia , the Romani language in Slovakia ) will eventually prevail.

No other international agency adopts legislation which applies directly to all citizens of Member States as does the Union. Conscious of this responsibility, the EU admits more generous official languages than any other international body. Due to the enormous difficulties, the language policy of the European Union is in fact quite different, a small number of languages being in practice "more equal than others."

European Parliament

The European Parliament must ensure multilingualism full for all plenary sessions, meetings of parliamentary bodies, parliamentary committees and political groups. Other meetings are not held. In fact, this principle is applied only to written documents that are routinely translated into 22 or 23 languages. Irish Gaelic is never used in speech. The other 22 languages are mainly used in oral plenary sessions. For committee meetings, oral translations are done in more than 11 languages. For press conferences, the number of languages is often limited to three: French, English and language of the speaker (if not German). With 23 official languages, over 506 language combinations are possible (or 253 pairs of languages ), since each language can be translated into 22 other languages. The European Union has two distinct services for communications interlingual:

• SCIC (Joint Interpreting and Conference Service) for oral translations
• DGT (Directorate General for Translation) for written translations

Official names and acronyms

Here are the twenty-three official languages of the European Union (2007) and their abbreviations:

"In varietate concordia"

The motto of the European Union, "In varietate concordia" in the twenty-three official languages:

• German: In Vielfalt geeint
• English: Unity in diversity
• Bulgarian (Edinni mnogoobrazieto v)
• Danish: Forenet i mangfoldighed
• Spanish in the diversidad Unidos
• Estonian: htsus erinevuses
• Finnish: Erilaisuudessaan yhdistynyt
• French: United in Diversity
• Greek (Entita stin polimorfa)
• Hungarian: Egysg has sokflesgben
• Irish Aontaithe in ilocht
• Italian: Unit nella diversit
• Latvian: Vienotba dadb
• Lithuanian: Vienyb vairialypikume
• Maltese: Maqgudin fid-Diversity
• Dutch: Eenheid in verscheidenheid
• Polish: w Jedno rnorodnoci
• Portugal: Unidade na Diversidade
• Romanian: Unitate in Diversitate
• Slovak: Jednotn v rozmanitosti
• Slovenian: Zdrueni v raznolikosti
• Swedish: i Frenade mngfalden
• Czech Jednotn v rozmanitosti

In the languages of official candidate countries

• Croatian : Ujedinjeni u razliitosti
• Icelandic : Sameinu fjlbreytileika
• Macedonian : (Edinstvo razlinosta vo)
• Turkish : oklukta Birlik

In the languages of the potential candidate countries

These countries have submitted a membership application, currently being studied (2009):

• Albanian :
• Montenegro :

References

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