Languages of the European Union
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The languages of the European Union are languages used by people within the member states of the European Union. They include the 23 official languages of the European Union along with a range of others. The EU asserts on its Europa homepage: "Languages: Europe's asset" and has a European Commissioner for Multilingualism, Leonard Orban.
n the European Union language policy is the responsibility of member states and EU does not have a common language policy; European Union institutions play a supporting role in this field. Based on the "principle of subsidiarity". Their role is to promote cooperation between the member states and to promote the European dimension in the member states language policies. EU encourages all its citizens to be multilingual; specifically, it encourages them to be able to speak two languages in addition to their mother tongue. Though the EU has very limited influence in this area as the content of educational systems is the responsibility of individual member states, a number of EU funding programmes actively promote language learning and linguistic diversity. [1]
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[edit] Official languages of the European Union
The official languages of the European Union, as stipulated in the amended EEC Council: Regulation No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community of 1958-04-15,[1] are: [2]
The number of member states exceeds the number of official languages, as several national languages are shared by two or more countries. Namely, Dutch is official in the Netherlands and Belgium, French in France, Belgium and Luxembourg, German in Germany, Austria, Belgium, and Luxembourg, and Greek in Greece and Cyprus. English and Swedish are also shared, the former by the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Malta and the latter by Sweden and Finland, but the fact that they are co-official in Ireland, Malta and Finland, with Irish, Maltese and Finnish respectively, means that the overall ratio of member states to national languages is unaffected.
Furthermore, not all national languages have been accorded the status of official EU languages. These include Luxembourgish, an official language of Luxembourg since 1984, and Turkish, an official language of Cyprus.
All languages of the EU are also working languages.[3] Documents which a Member State or a person subject to the jurisdiction of a Member State sends to institutions of the Community may be drafted in any one of the official languages selected by the sender. The reply shall be drafted in the same language. Regulations and other documents of general application shall be drafted in the twenty-three official languages. The Official Journal of the European Union shall be published in the twenty-three official languages.
Legislation and documents of major public importance or interest are produced in all 23 official languages, but that accounts for a minority of the institutions' work. Other documents (e.g. communications with the national authorities, decisions addressed to particular individuals or entities and correspondence) are translated only into the languages needed. For internal purposes the EU institutions are allowed by law to choose their own language arrangements. The European Commission, for example, conducts its internal business in three languages, English, French and German, and goes fully multilingual only for public information and communication purposes. The European Parliament, on the other hand, has Members who need working documents in their own languages, so its document flow is fully multilingual from the outset.[2]
According to the EU's English language website,[3] the cost of maintaining the instutions' policy of multilingualism (i.e. the cost of translation and interpretation) is €1123 million, which is 1% of the annual general budget of the EU, or €2.28 per person per year.
[edit] Maltese
Though Maltese is an official language, the Council had set up a transitional period of three years from May 1, 2004, during which the institutions would not be obliged to draft all acts in Maltese.[4] It was agreed then the Council could extend the transitional period for a further year, but it decided not to.[5] That means all new acts of the institutions must be adopted and published in Maltese from April 30, 2007.
[edit] Irish
Although the Irish language has been one of the official languages of the European Union only since January 1, 2007, it is the Republic of Ireland's first official language, and has minority-language status in Northern Ireland. Since the Republic of Ireland's accession to the European Economic Community (now the European Union) in 1973, EU treaties have been published and authenticated in Irish - as an official treaty language - as well as the EU official languages, and one has been able to make written submissions to Union institutions in Irish. On 13 June 2005, following a unanimous decision by EU foreign ministers (667th Meeting of the Council of the European Union, Luxembourg [6]), it was announced that Irish would be made the 21st official language of the EU but a derogation stipulates that not all documents have to be translated into Irish as is the case with the other official languages. [7] [8]The decision means that legislation approved by both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers will now be translated into Irish, and interpretation from Irish will be available at European Parliament plenary sessions and some Council meetings. The new arrangements came into effect on 1 January 2007. The cost of translation, interpretation, publication and legal services involved in making Irish an official EU language is estimated at just under €3.5 million a year.[9] The derogation will be reviewed in four years and every five years thereafter.
Irish is the only official language of the Union that is not the most widely spoken language in any member state - 2006 census figures show that in the Republic of Ireland there are 1.66 million speakers of Irish out of a population of 4,239,848, though only 538,500 use Irish every day. It is also estimated that 165,000 people in Northern Ireland can speak Irish. There are small but slowly growing diaspora communities that speak Irish around the world, the largest being in the United States, with 25,000 Irish speakers. [10]
[edit] Status of Regional and Minority languages
The Spanish governments have sought to give some official status in the EU for Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician. The 2667th Council Meeting of the Council of the European Union in Luxembourg on 13 June 2005 decided to authorise limited use at EU level of languages recognised by Member States other than the official working languages. The Council granted recognition to "languages other than the languages referred to in Council Regulation No 1/1958 whose status is recognised by the Constitution of a Member State on all or part of its territory or the use of which as a national language is authorised by law." The official use of such languages will be authorised on the basis of an administrative arrangement concluded between the Council and the requesting Member State. [11]
Luxembourgish, an official language of Luxembourg, and Turkish, an official language of Cyprus, have not used yet this provision.
There has been a suggestion in an official briefing that the implicit principle for official languages of the European Union is that each member state can put forward at most one official language ('one member state, one language'). This has not been confirmed in documents.[citation needed]
[edit] Catalan, Galician, and Basque
Although Catalan, Galician and Basque are not nation-wide official languages in Spain, as co-official languages in the respective regions they are eligible to benefit from official use in EU institutions under the terms of the 13 June 2005 resolution of the Council of the European Union. The Spanish government has assented to the provisions in respect of these languages.
The status of Catalan, spoken by many millions of citizens, has been the subject of particular debate. On 11 December 1990, the use of Catalan was the subject of a European Parliament Resolution (resolution A3-169/90 on languages in the (European) Community and the situation of Catalan (OJ-C19, 28 January 1991).
On November 16, 2005, the Committee of the Regions President Peter Straub signed an agreement with the Spanish Ambassador to the EU, Carlos Sagües Bastarreche, approving the use of Spanish regional languages in an EU institution for the first time in a meeting on that day, with interpretation provided by European Commission interpreters. [12] [13]
On July 3, 2006, the European Parliament’s Bureau approved a proposal by the Spanish State to allow citizens to address the European Parliament in Basque, Catalan and Galician, two months after its initial rejection. [14] [15]
On November 30, 2006, the European Ombudsman, Nikiforos Diamandouros, and the Spanish ambassador in the EU, Carlos Bastarreche, signed an agreement in Brussels to allow Spanish citizens to address complains to the European Ombudsman in Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician, all three co-official languages in Spain. [16] According to the agreement, a translation body, which will be set up and financed by the Spanish government, will be responsible for translating complaints submitted in these languages. In turn, it will translate the Ombudsman's decisions from Spanish/Castilian into the language of the complainant. Until such a body is established the agreement will not become effective.
[edit] Welsh and Scottish Gaelic
In response to a written parliamentary question tabled following the 2005-06-13 resolution on official use of regional languages, the UK Minister for Europe, Douglas Alexander, stated on 2005-06-29 that "The Government have no current plans to make similar provisions for UK languages."
[edit] Provision in the proposed constitutional treaty
The Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe was drafted in the 21 official treaty languages of the EU (the official languages, plus Irish), in the languages of three candidate countries: Romanian, Bulgarian, and Turkish (the former two have now joined the union). It contains the following provision:
Article IV-448(2): This Treaty may also be translated into any other languages as determined by Member States among those which, in accordance with their constitutional order, enjoy official status in all or part of their territory. A certified copy of such translations shall be provided by the Member States concerned to be deposited in the archives of the Council.
Note that the Constitution has been signed by all Member States and is in the ratification process. Following its rejection in referenda in France and the Netherlands, as matters stand it will not come into force.
[edit] Migrant languages
Migrant languages are not given formal status or recognition in the EU or in the EU countries and they are not covered by EU language-teaching programmes. Only national and local authorities may provide classes to help immigrants learn the language of their adopted country. [17]
[edit] National sign languages in the European Union
Roughly one person in one thousand uses a national sign language as a first language, however there are many more that use one as their second language. An increasing number of countries have some form of recognition of their national sign language such as Belgium with Flemish Sign Language (VGT) and Belgian-French Sign Language (LSFB), the United Kingdom with British Sign Language (BSL). In Northern Ireland, Irish Sign Language (ISL) and Northern Ireland Sign Language (NISL) are recognised as official languages.
On 1988-06-17, the European Parliament unanimously approved a Resolution about national Sign Languages. This resolution asks all Member States for recognition of their national sign languages as official languages which would bring better linguistic rights and protection for sign language users especially the deaf users of sign language.
[edit] Language skills of European Union citizens
The following tables are based on "Special Eurobarometer 243" of the European Commission with the title "Europeans and their Languages" (summary full text), published on February 2006 with research carried out on November and December 2005. The survey was published before the 2007 Enlargement of the European Union, when Bulgaria and Romania acceded. This is a poll, not a census. 28,694 citizens with a minimum age of 15 were asked in the then 25 member-states as well as in the then future member-states (Bulgaria, Romania) and the candidate countries (Croatia, Turkey) at the time of the survey. Only citizens, not immigrants, were asked.
The first table shows what proportion of citizens said that they could have a conversation in each language as their mother tongue and as a second language or foreign language (only the languages with at least 2% of the speakers are listed):
| Language | Proportion of EU25 population speaking it | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| as a mother tongue |
as a language other than mother tongue |
Total proportion | ||
| English |   |
13% | 38% | 51% |
| German |     |
18% | 14% | 32% |
| French |  |
12% | 14% | 26% |
| Italian |  |
13% | 3% | 16% |
| Spanish |  |
9% | 6% | 15% |
| Polish |  |
9% | 1% | 10% |
| Dutch |  |
5% | 1% | 6% |
| Russian | n/a | 1% | 6% | 7% |
| Swedish |   |
2% | 1% | 3% |
| Greek |   |
3% | 0% | 3% |
| Czech |  |
2% | 1% | 3% |
| Portuguese |  |
2% | 0% | 2% |
| Hungarian |  |
2% | 0% | 2% |
| Slovak |  |
1% | 1% | 2% |
| Catalan |  |
1% | 1% | 2% |
Source: [18], data for EU25, published before 2007 enlargement.
German is, then, the most widely spoken mother tongue with 18% of the speakers, while English is the most widely spoken language in the EU with 51%. One should also note that 100% of Hungarians, 100% of Portuguese, and 99% of Greeks speak the state language as their mother tongue.
The knowledge of foreign languages varies considerably in the specific countries, as the table below shows. The three most spoken second or foreign languages in the EU are English, German and French. When no rate is noted, the language is not one of the three most spoken second or foreign languages in this country.
| Country (EU25) |
English as a language other than mother tongue |
German as a language other than mother tongue |
French as a language other than mother tongue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austria |
58% | 4% | 10% |
| Belgium |
59% | 27% | 48% |
| Czech Republic |
24% | 28% | 2% |
 Denmark |
86% | 58% | 12% |
| Germany |
56% | 9% | 15% |
 Estonia |
46% | 22% | 1% |
| Greece |
48% | 9% | 8% |
| Finland |
63% | 18% | 3% |
| France |
36% | 8% | 6% |
| Ireland |
5% | 7% | 20% |
| Italy |
29% | 5% | 14% |
| Cyprus |
76% | 5% | 12% |
 Latvia |
32% | 14% | 2% |
 Lithuania |
39% | 19% | 1% |
| Luxembourg |
60% | 88% | 90% |
| Hungary |
23% | 25% | 2% |
 Malta |
88% | 3% | 17% |
| Netherlands |
87% | 70% | 29% |
| Poland |
29% | 19% | 3% |
| Portugal |
32% | 3% | 24% |
| Spain |
27% | 2% | 12% |
 Slovenia |
57% | 50% | 4% |
| Slovakia |
32% | 32% | 2% |
| Sweden |
89% | 30% | 11% |
| United Kingdom |
7% | 9% | 23% |
| Enlargement and Candidate countries: | |||
 Croatia |
49% | 34% | 4% |
 Romania |
29% | 6% | 24% |
 Bulgaria |
23% | 12% | 9% |
 Turkey |
17% | 4% | 1% |
Source: [19], data for EU25, published before 2007 enlargement.
56% of citizens in the EU Member States are able to hold a conversation in one language apart from their mother tongue. This is 9 points more than was perceived in 2001 among the 15 Member States at the time [20]. 28% of the respondents state that they speak two foreign languages well enough to have a conversation. Still, almost half of the respondents, 44%, admit not knowing any other language than their mother tongue. Approximately 1 in 5 Europeans can be described as an active language learner, i.e. someone who has recently improved his/her language skills or intends to do so over the following 12 months.
English remains the most widely spoken foreign language throughout Europe. 38% of EU citizens state that they have sufficient skills in English to have a conversation (apart from the citizens of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, the two English-speaking countries). 14% of Europeans indicate that they know either French or German along with their mother tongue. French is most commonly studied and used in Southern Europe, especially in Mediterranean countries, in Germany, Romania, the UK and Ireland while German is commonly studied and used in the Benelux countries, in Scandinavia and in the newer EU member states. In 19 out of 29 countries polled, English is the most widely known language apart from the mother tongue, this being particularly the case in Sweden (89%), Malta (an ex-British colony) (88%) and the Netherlands (87%), while German and French is so in three countries. Moreover, the citizens of the EU think they speak English at a better level than any other second or foreign language. 77% of EU citizens believe that children should learn English and that it´s considered the number one language to learn in all countries where the research conducted but the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Luxembourg.
All in all, English either as a mother tongue or as a second/foreign language is spoken by 51% of EU citizens, followed by German with 32% and French with 28% of those asked.
With the enlargement of the European Union, the balance between French and German is slowly changing. Clearly more citizens in the new Member States master German (23% compared with 12% in the EU15) while their skills in French and Spanish are scarce (3% and 1% respectively compared with 16% and 7% among the EU15 group). A notable exception is Romania, where 24% of the population speaks French as a foreign language compared to 6% who speaks German as a foreign language (also 4% of the population speaks Italian as a foreign language, while 3% of the population speaks Spanish as a foreign language).
It is worth pointing out that language skills are unevenly distributed both over the geographical area of Europe and over sociodemographic groups. Reasonably good language competences are perceived in relatively small Member States with several state languages, lesser used native languages or "language exchange” with neighbouring countries. This is the case for example in Luxembourg where 92% speak at least two languages. Those who live in Southern European countries or countries where one of the major European languages is a state language appear to have moderate language skills. Only 5% of Turkish, 13% of Irish and 16% Italians master at least two languages apart from their mother tongue. A "multilingual" European is likely to be young, well-educated or still studying, born in a country other than the country of residence, who uses foreign languages for professional reasons and is motivated to learn. Consequently, it seems that a large part of European society is not enjoying the advantages of multilingualism.
Free language lessons (26%), flexible language courses that suit one’s schedule (18%) and opportunities to learn languages in a country where it is spoken natively (17%) are considered to be the main incentives encouraging language learning. Group lessons with a teacher (20%), language lessons at school (18%), “one-to-one” lessons with a teacher and long or frequent visits to a country where the language is spoken are considered to be the most suitable ways to learn languages.
[edit] Regional and Minority Languages
According to the Euromosaic study, a number or regional or minority languages spoken within the EU that do not have official recognition at EU level. Some of them may have some official status within the member state and count many more speakers than some of the lesser-used official languages. These include (data available for EU25):
In this list, constructed languages or dialects of an official language of member states are not included.
[edit] Russian
Though not an official language of the European Union, Russian is widely spoken in some of the newer member states of the Union that were formerly in the Eastern bloc. Russian is the native language of about 1.3 million Slavs residing in Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, as well as a sizable community in Germany. Russian is also understood by many ethnic Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians, since it was a compulsory subject of many curricula in these countries during the Soviet era; today, due to strong relations with Russia (border with many countries, Russian transit gives job to many logistical companies, sea ports; some sciense collaboration exists) Russian is also studied at schools, it is compulsory in some high schools and universities. Although rarely a native language, Russian is widely understood by many in Bulgaria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, some in Hungary, Romania and other countries. It is the 8th most spoken language in the EU. About 7% of all EU citizens speak or understand Russian to some extent.
[edit] Migrant languages
A wide variety of languages from other parts of the world are spoken by immigrant communities in EU countries. Turkish is spoken as a first language by an estimated 2% of the population in Belgium and the western part of Germany and by 1% in The Netherlands. Other widely-used migrant languages include Maghreb Arabic (mainly in France and Belgium), Urdu, Bengali and Hindi spoken by immigrants from the Indian sub-continent in the United Kingdom, while Balkan languages are spoken in many parts of the EU by migrants and refugees who have left the region as a result of the recent wars and unrest there.
Many immigrant communities in the EU have been in place for several generations now and their members are bilingual, at ease both in the local language and in that of their community. [21]
[edit] Linguistic classification of the EU official languages
The majority of the official languages of the European Union belong to the Indo-European language family, the three dominant subfamilies being the Germanic, Romance and Slavic languages. Germanic languages are widely spoken in central and northern areas of the EU and include Danish, Dutch, English, German, and Swedish. Romance languages are spoken in western and southern regions and include French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish. The Slavic languages are to be found in the eastern regions and include Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, Slovak, and Slovene. The Baltic languages Latvian and Lithuanian, the Celtic language Irish, and Greek are also of Indo-European origin. Outside the Indo-European family, Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian are Finno-Ugric languages while Maltese is the only Semitic language with official status in the EU. All official EU languages except Greek (written with the Greek alphabet) and Bulgarian (written in the Cyrillic alphabet) are written with the Latin alphabet.
[edit] Legal basis
The European Union ability for legislative acts and other initiatives on language policy is based legally in the provisions in the Treaties of the European Union. In the EU, language policy is the responsibility of member states and European Union does not have a "common language policy". Based on the "principle of subsidiarity", European Union institutions play a supporting role in this field, promoting cooperation between the member states and promoting the European dimension in the member states language policies, particularly through the teaching and dissemination of the languages of the member states (Article 149.2).[4][5] The rules governing the languages of the institutions of the Community shall, without prejudice to the provisions contained in the Statute of the Court of Justice, be determined by the Council, acting unanimously (Article 290). All languages, in which was originally drawn up or was trasnlates due to enlargement, are legally equally authentic. Every citizen of the Union may write to any of the EU institutions or bodies in one of the these languages and have an answer in the same language (Article 314).
In the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a legally non-binding text, the EU declares that it respects linguistic diversity (Article 22) and prohibits discrimination on grounds of language (Article 21). Respect for linguistic diversity is a fundamental value of the European Union, in the same way as respect for the person, openness towards other cultures, tolerance and acceptance of other people.
[edit] EU initiatives for language learning and linguistic diversity
Beginning with the Lingua programme in 1990, the European Union invests more than €30 million a year (out of a €120 billion EU budget) promoting language learning through the Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci programmes in: bursaries to enable language teachers to be trained abroad, placing foreign language assistants in schools, funding class exchanges to motivate pupils to learn languages, creating new language courses on CDs and the Internet and projects that raise awareness of the benefits of language learning.
Through strategic studies, the Commission promotes debate, innovation and the exchange of good practice. In addition, the mainstream actions of Community programmes which encourage mobility and transnational partnerships motivate participants to learn languages.
Youth exchanges, town twinning projects and the European Voluntary Service also promote multilingualism. Since 1997, the Culture 2000 programme has financed the translation of around 2,000 literary works from and into European languages.
The new programmes proposed for implementation for the financial perspective 2007-2013 (Culture 2007, Youth in Action and Lifelong Learning) will continue and develop this kind of support.
In addition, the EU provides the main financial support to the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages (a non-governmental organisation which represents the interests of the over 40 million citizens who belong to a regional and minority language community), and for the Mercator networks of universities active in research on lesser-used languages in Europe. Following a request from the European Parliament, the Commission in 2004 launched a feasibility study on the possible creation of a new EU agency, "European Agency for Language Learning and Linguistic Diversity". The study concludes that there are unmet needs in this field, and proposes two options: creating an agency or setting up a European network of "Language Diversity Centres". The Commission believes that a network would be the most appropriate next step and, where possible, should build on existing structures; it will examine the possibility of financing it on a multi-annual basis through the proposed Lifelong Learning programme.
Although not an EU treaty, some EU member states have ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Its ratification is also a prerequisite for new member-states joining the Union.
To encourage language learning, the EU supported the Council of Europe initiatives for European Year of Languages 2001 and the annual celebration of European Day of Languages on September 26.
To encourage the member states to cooperate and to disseminate best practice the Commission has issued a Communication on July 24, 2003, on Promoting Language Learning and Linguistic Diversity: an Action Plan 2004 - 2006 (summary) and a Communication on November 22, 2005, on A New Framework Strategy for Multilingualism (summary).
From November 22, 2004, the European Commissioner for Education and Culture portfolio included an explicit reference to languages and became European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Multilingualism with Ján Figeľ at the post. From January 1, 2007, the European Commission has a special portfolio on languages, European Commissioner for Multilingualism. The post is currently held by Leonard Orban.
EU devotes a specialised subsite of its "Europa" portal to languages, the EUROPA Languages portal.
[edit] See also
- European languages
- European Commissioner for Multilingualism – Leonard Orban
- European Day of Languages – 26 September
- Linguistic issues concerning the euro
- List of names of the official languages of the European Union in the official languages respectively
- Names of the European Union in the official languages
[edit] References
- ^ Council Regulation (EC) No 1791/2006 of 20 November 2006, Official Journal L 363 of December 12, 2006. Retrieved on February 2, 2007.
- ^ Europa:Languages and Europe. FAQ: Is every document generated by the EU translated into all the official languages?, Europa portal. Retrieved on February 6, 2007.
- ^ Europa:Languages and Europe. FAQ: What does the EU's policy of multilingualism cost?, Europa portal. Retrieved on February 6, 2007.
- ^ Consolidated version of the Treaty establishing the European Community, Articles 149 to 150, Official Journal C 321E of 29 December 2006. Retrieved on February 1, 2007.
- ^ European Parliament Fact Sheets: 4.16.3. Language policy, European Parliament website. Retrieved on February 3, 2007.
[edit] Further reading
- Hogan-Brun, Gabrielle and Stefan Wolff. 2003. Minority Languages in Europe: Frameworks, Status, Prospects. Palgrave. ISBN 1403903964
- Nic Craith, Máiréad. 2005. Europe and the Politics of Language: Citizens, Migrants and Outsiders. Palgrave. ISBN 1403918333
- Shetter, William Z., EU Language Year 2001: Celebrating diversity but with a hangover, Language Miniature No 63.
- Shetter, William Z., Harmony or Cacophony: The Global Language System, Language Miniature No 96.
[edit] External links
[edit] Official EU webpages
- Europa: Languages and Europe - The European Union portal on languages
- European Parliament Fact Sheets: 4.16.3. Language policy
- European Commission > Education and Training > Policy Areas > Languages
- EUROPA > The EU at a glance > The European countries > Languages in the EU - Hear examples of the official EU languages
- European Commissioner for Multilingualism - Leonard Orban
- European Commission Directorate-General for Education and Culture (DG EAC)
- European Commission Directorate-General for Translation (DGT)
- European Commission Directorate-General for Interpretation (former SCIC)
- European Union Publications Office
- European Union interinstitutional style guide
- The process of creating documents in this multilingual environment (PDF)
[edit] News
- EurActiv.com - Languages and Culture - news site
- Eurolang news agency covering lesser-used languages in the EU.
[edit] Other
- The European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages (EBLUL) - a EU funded NGO on lesser-used languages in the EU.
- Mercator - networks of universities active in research on lesser-used languages in Europe
- ADUM - information on minority languages EU programmes.
- MinoLa - Minority Languages in the European Union
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Official languages of the European Union |  |
|---|---|---|
| Bulgarian | Czech | Danish | Dutch | English | Estonian | Finnish | French German | Greek | Hungarian | Irish | Italian | Latvian | Lithuanian | Maltese Polish | Portuguese | Romanian | Slovak | Slovenian | Spanish | Swedish |
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| Source: European Union website | ||
| Topics of the European Union |  |
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|---|---|---|
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| Law: | Acquis | Competition law | Copyright law: | Journal | Maastricht Treaty | Procedure | Regulation Three pillars | |
| Politics: | Agencies | Commission | Committees | Council | Court of Justice | Elections | Enlargement | Foreign relations | MEPs | Parliament | Parties | |
| Life: | Central Bank | Citizenship | Demographics | Economy | Educational | Energy | Euro | European Coal and Steel | Institute of Technology | Languages | Library | Sport | |
| Lists: | Agencies | Directives | Institutions | Largest cities | Member states | Political parties | Presidency | |
