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The Week in Germany: Culture

December 15, 2006

EU Ombudsman Calls for More German in EU Publications

EU Ombudsman Nikiforos Diamandouros called for expanded use of German in official EU publications and rebuffed the European Council for dismissing citizens’ requests to make their EU presidency websites available in German this week.

“The information on the [EU] council presidency website should ideally be available in all official community languages. If the number of languages ist to be limited, the choice of languages should be based on objective and reasonable criteria and considerations”, said the ombudsman, as reported by the EUobserver. Currently, only English and French versions of the presidency websites are required.

EU parliamentarians from Germany were quick to follow up Diamandouros’ comments, pointing out that German is the most spoken native-language in the 25 member bloc. EPP leader Hans Gert Pöttering said, “The EPP would welcome any extra languages, especially German, which is the majority language in the EU, being added to the presidency websites.”

While the current debate about the German language will be temporarily moot when Germany takes the reins of the rotating six-month EU presidency on January 1, 2007, that is not likely to end the tongue twister about languages in multi-lingual EU. Spain and Italy have also lodged complaints about cutbacks in the official EU translation services.

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