Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Merkel wants more German spoken in EU

Right approach.
BUT
MUSH BETTER SHOULD BE:
MORE GERMAN MENTALITY.

Ich finde das gut. Deutsch ist eine wichtige Sprache.
I think that it is good. German is a important language.

Deutsch ist eine schöne Sprache, indeed, but for the sake of increasing productivity, would it be more effective to invest in eurEnglish, instead?

@ Don Latuske

Like you Don I have no objection to the EU Institutions speaking German.

I would however amend your statement as follows:

2) A complete reduction in the speaking of bollocks by one and all in these institutions with Barroso and van Rompuy leading the way

Please insert the word Total after the word – of.

I would also strongly recommend that the wonderful organisation called 'The Plain English Society' which has helped so much in the UK with contractual English be relocated lock stock and barrel to Brussels where its use would be mandatory.

OK ENOUGH ! Now everybody agree with me ;-)

We should Britanize or Americanize the german language too!

Very good. But you cannot impose your language without taking proper responsibility for the European project. There is no doubt that Germany has been acting in a nationalistic and egoistic manner throughout the Eurocrisis. They themselves refused being the leader by acting like Switzerland. But Germany is big and powerful, and any action has (until now mostly negative) external effects on all other Euro-partners. First take ownership for the European project, than demand, not the other way around!!!

This is actually quite a reasonable demand. English made its way as the dominant language mostly through the simple fact that very few Brits bothered to learn other languages. French made its way because of a (usually rather unhealthy - see Strasbourg) iron will to push their own interests through. Germans in most cases are very willing to speak English or French if the other person doesn't understand it - I've been to meetings with about ten Germans and one or two non-Germans that were not fluent but at least proficient in German - the meetings were held in English just to be sure that no one was excluded. Absurd.

It is by far the most common mother tongue in the EU (about 1 in 5 Europeans speaks German as a first language compared to about 1 in 9 that speak English) and is also one of the most common second languages (after English and depending on your source also after French). In that way the current system - which favors native speakers of English and French over those of German (not to speak of all the other languages) is very unfair, particularly considering the share of the population.

French, Belgian and British (I'm not sure about Irish) are proportionally overrepresented in the Commission and Council staff and Germany is highly underreptesented in the lower ranks (the high ranks being leftover officials from times when the EU was not the EU yet).

In short: This is a reasonable and in every respect fair demand. And i make this point without reference to economic power or net payments or the fact that a German EU election vote is worth lesss than 1/8th of a Maltese or Cypriot vote (number of citiziens represented by each MEP) - a number that gets worse with every EU enlargement.

In the EU Germany has been willing to "compromise" in many ways - which, because others are unwilling to compromise, usually meant that it voluntarily took the short straw in order to keep the peace within the Union.

- I fully support Merkel's suggestion.

@"adolf"
i guess the fact that a user here calls himself "Adolf" says a lot about his (her?) intellectual level. The additional fact that he seems to reads enough tabloids to think that Germany, the country that shared the largest burden of the crisis payments, acted in a "nationalistic and egoistic manner" speaks for a pretty strong delusion. You should learn some respect for the victims of WW2 and you should learn to critically evaluate evaluation and think for a moment before you spout nonsense.

Do we really want to make Germany more like England that force her language on to everyone?

I don't think so....look at England and see how it looks today. Do we want Germany to become the next mutlicultural England?

No!! Let the people who want to speak German, learn German and let's not force our language on to other people...including the EU. We should use the one language everyone already knows..and that is English.

Now to only get the French to accept that.

@european
well you have a point. I am not sure, but I do not identify the English language with the UK, I use it as a world language similar to Spanish I guess. Few native speakers in the EU but many at the world stage and many people speak it as a foreign language. Another point, why are the Germans always complaining how much they pay and not how much they receive from the EU??? They are probably the biggest net gainer. If you analyse Obamas speach in Berlin you will encounter the same critic, be more optimistic, look more into the future, see the potential gain and do not think like a bookkeeper! Last point, the biggest beneficiary of the Marhsall plan was the US. Maybe the € crises was the missed opportunity for Germany to be the leader (in a positive sense) for the next 100 years...

German is the logic language in Europe, as most of Europeans use it.
We Flemish are also part of the Germanic Heritage and are proud of it.
The Roman empire has long time suppressed us all. Above that, English is not a real language, half of its words are from French origin.
It is time that Germany stands for its rights!
GB has never been enthousiast about really taking part of the EEC, so why should they impose their private speach?

German language is situated in the center of Europe.
English is an isolated language on an Island.
The UN is constituted in a time that is was accepted to propagate anti-German feelings.
Nowadays Germany is the only serious supporting country in Europe.
The British have Always refused to really take part of the EU, not only by sticking to their own money. So why should Europe follow and use a kind of French-mixture?
Our roots and culture lays in the center, not in the outskirts!

The holocaust is a long time ago.
Nobody speaks anymore about the British concentration camps in South Africa, The mass murders of Stalin, The Armenian genocide a.s.o.

You forgot to mention "only serious ..."

According to your writing you are not British, so why supporting them?
Never learned any German? Well, better start with it!

then

You are quite arrogant! If you want to make German the European language you should start to think to leave Europe and create a new Anseatic League or IV reich ( if you know what it was..have a look on wiki it can help to gap the bridge in your education ;)

According with your manner of writing you probably vote this Belgian party Vlaams belang and this explain quite well your frustation with french speakers

What are you trying with your fishing about?
I never mentioned any French speakers.
And this discussion is about German and not about Politics.
And even if I would be member of any party, isn't that my democratic right?
Are you convinced that together with leftist lobbyists in the Wikies that you have the right to implement your ideas to others?

Well, if I am arrogant, you are a dummocratic!

While teaching Dutch in Rijsel, I met several French students who use fluently German. That is being respectable!

I never pretended to be perfect.
Your remarks are beside the subject, that makes them ridiculous.

Motifying you meanings with Wiki referencies is trying to take advantage of the well-known red and lefties dominated medium.
When are you starting to learn German? Better sooner than later, if you want to survive in a postmodern Europe.

If you continu to slip-off everytime, i.s.o. giving a serious answer, I stop this duscussion.

Where is the logic that the most important en used language in Europe is not used by the EU?
The Germans are right, not to accept this stupid discrimination.
Good for them is having a steel lady i.s.o. an iron example.
They are not at all "besserwisser"!
They proved to know and to do better than all the others.
Who is going to disprove that?

Furthmore in which way the Germans has demostred to be the best? Could you please clarify this point?

You did not explain anything you just made a statement, there is a big difference between the two concept. If I say I am a genius I have not expalined why I considered myself a genius but I just made a statement. So could you please explain your two statement:
a)German is most important language in Europe
b)Germany has demostrated to be the best

Thank you.

On this link i just found real information that I study for the first time probably when I was attending the primary school.
In particular:
"Germany has the largest population of any EU country."
"German is the most widely spoken first language in the European Union"
This sentences does not imply that german language is more important just that is more sposken as native language. If you are coherent in your logic you should accept fro instance that, if the Turkey will be part of EU, Turkish language will be the most important EU language(taking into account the current popolution and the birth rate). I do not think you will agree.

Secondly the link does not provide any kind of evidences in supporting your statement b)"Germany has demostrated to be the best"

@Federalist
Totally agree. By the way, you said the magic words to end the discussion. Turkey! Of course, applying the same logic, turkish should be the official language, and the most represented country in the institutions in the EU once they are finally a member. At the end, Germany has up to now failed to take advantage of their multicultural society and this hinders them to be a real leader, as they fail to understand the views of others and integrate them in their leadership (see Economist about Germany). Only then they will be able to make German more acceptable as a diplomatic language.

Turkey is not a European country, nor people. It is not part of the EU and will hopefully never be. What is logic, seen the previous facts. Istanbul was, before it was conquered by the muslims. All the rest was not, and will never be Europe, not geographic nor social.
Most of European languages in the North are German related. South is Roman or Latin related. Guess where the money, thus the economy, comes from?
My mother tongue is Dutch, that is the old translation of Deutsch or Diets. So, that is clear.
Why aren't you proposing to the British to accept and use more foreign languages? (f.e. from the invaders?).
Why not require the French to learn Berberic, not to mention Barbaric?

Teach all the children Esperanto as 2nd language in
basic learning - with the knowledge of this neutral
and easy to learn language the further learning of klabguages will be facilitated. And the next genertion will have fewer communication problems !

Ciuj infanoj lernu Esperanton kiel dua lingvo en basa lernejo ; kun la sciego de tie neûtrala kaj facile lingvo
la lernado de pli alia lingvoj estos facilitata. Kaj la sekva generacio havu malpli problemoj de komunikado !

When everybody will be able to speak a set of 3 or 4 different languages (as most of the young generations increasingly are in many EU countries), everyone will find at least one to communicate with when meeting someone else. There won't be then much necessity for Germans or others to defend the use of their language in european insitutions. Only maybe the least spoken languages would then start such fights as estonian, slovenian or finish. This is very good. The more diversity, the more wealth as far as culture is concerned. Who could possibly wish a uniformed language to absorb every others?

Would it be for those who think so just for the sake of not feeling too guilty being unable to mumble the slightest word of a different language than the one they learnt from mummy (with more or less difficulty)? In terms of "efficiency" that would probably be for them the only positive outcome to be expected from such a strategy.

For "efficiency purposes" I also suggest the whole world only eats burgers and coke! Bye-bye italian, chinese, french, thai, indian or turkish cuisine, let's just have MacDonalds and Starbucks all over the planet so we handle our meals everyday all the same, as in America, and probably save doing so the whole world from starving (thanks to standardised american restaurants replacing all the variety of traditional cuisines). Miamiamiami!

Gaardenier

We all know about the exeptional predispositions of you dutch and flemish, as Scandinavians (whom no one either wanted to learn the language of ever). By the way I happen to have been travelling in Flanders a couple of times and I used to find it even more stupid that people there would actually know and understand perfectly a foreign language but could only answer it in Flemish Dutch! But that is probably a specificity of the so-much-more open-minded approach of the world and general intelectual capacities, people must have in Northern Europe especially in Flanders.)

For England (not the UK), France or (just) south Spain, (in Wales, Northern Irland, Catalunia or the Basque Country, people are as much, if not more bilingual as flemish people) you should compare the statistics with 30 years ago, not even mentioning 50 years ago, you'd be amazed how language skills have progressed (even more so for second foreign languages) in such a short period of time. Maybe not to the superior level sophisticated and civilised nothern europeans can (on their continental edges), but certainly to a certain point and if this, as it happens to today, goes on for the next 30 or 50 years (as it went or faster) I'm not sure we are so far from what I'd described earlier especially when people over say 40 years old today today will have joined the masses of crowds which for milleniums couldn't ever in their life get a word from the dialect spoken in the neighbouring valley, anywhere in Europe (exept maybe in Flanders, because of your obvious superior genes to this extend).

People may mumble a globish english all over the planet but they could also speak perfect italian, arabic or russian you wouldn't know. I have finnish friends I prefer to speak in German with and where I live (outside from the french speaking world) many spanish or italian people rather talk in French with me among others. Many times I end up in international groups (I live in Berlin) where people prefer to speak in Spanish alltogether (though they speak good german or english but happen to cheer more together in Spanish due to their common experiences with this language I don't have as much).

And I'm very far from the top aritocracy elite (0,5% of the population) who just a 100 years ago, used to be the only ones meeting each others in several different foreign languages (even in Berlin, though it's pretty North).

Of course since you obviously have so much money to make all around the world as the superior flemish wealthy multilingual northern European you claim to be, free of any culturalist fantasies.

My post is neither fantasist nor optimistic, as more and more people are speaking more and more world languages, while more and more less-spoken languages are equally disappearing at the same time. This is just an observable fact concerning the evolution of language skills. Your interpretation of northern europe being by nature more talented in making money and / or / because better at languages is absolutly fantasist.

@ Augustin Chamarbois: Bravo!

Indeed, I agree with you and French chauvinism can be expensive.
But there is still another side effect. While Germany is continuously growing as the main support for Europe, they start realising that when you want to do business with them, you should better learn their language. At least it will be a smoothing advantage. And they are right. Not that they will refuse to use English, but they have been neglected for a long time, in spite of their enormous work and achievements they did and do.
I do have friends in France who speak and write fluently German. Beside English of course! Some of them are studying Dutch, because of their international work. Bravo for them!