Language Policy and Education in the European Union
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LANGUAGE POLICY IN EUROPE
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LANGUAGE POLICY AND EDUCATION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
INTRODUCTION
Language policy is acquiring increasing importance in an age of intensive political and cultural change in Europe. Among the key educational language policy issues in contemporary Europe are ensuring the continued vitality of national languages, rights for minority languages, diversification in foreign language learning, and the formation of a European Higher Education Area (the Bologna process). English, due to its role in globalisation and European integration processes, impacts on each of these four issues in each European state. The role of the European Union (EU) is a second cross-cutting factor, because of its declared commitment to maintaining linguistic diversity and to promoting multilingualism in education. On the other hand, it is arguable that the dominance of English in many forms of international activity, the erosion of national borders by changes in communication technology, and the hierarchy of languages that exists de facto in EU institutions and EU-funded activities (such as student mobility) may be serving to strengthen English at the expense of other languages. E A R LY D E V E L O P M E N T S
The EU began life as an economic community in 1958 with six member states: Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Luxemburg, and the Netherlands. Small enlargements occurred over the following four decades, bringing the total in the mid-1990s to 15 member states. Eleven languages had equal rights as the official and working languages of EU institutions. A major enlargement in 2004 brought in ten additional states (post-communist eastern European states, Cyprus and Malta). Nine languages were added to the world’s largest translation and interpretation services. The EU is an immensely complex business: interpretation is provided for an average of 50 meetings each working day, and over 70% of national legislation entails enacting measures that have already been agreed on at the supranational level. European integration significantly affects economic, political, social and cultural life. Whether the present EU is a United States of Europe in the making is unclear. The rejection of the draft EU S. May and N. H. Hornberger (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, Volume 1: Language Policy and Political Issues in Education, 255–264. #2008 Springer Science+Business Media LLC.
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R O B E RT P H I L L I P S O N
Constitution in 2005 confirmed the gap between citizens with a strong national identity and the European project of political leaders and a remote unaccountable bureaucracy. The EU has been decisively influenced by a trans-Atlantic corporate neoliberal agenda (Monbiot, 2000), which the constitution would have consolidated. It also covered ‘fundamental rights’ as a potential counter-balance to the workings of the market, but the provisions on cultural and linguistic rights are weak. ‘Europe’ is a fuzzy concept. Depending on context, Europe may be a toponym (territory, geogr
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