European Unity: Languages & Money

Blogging about language policy can't ignore Europe. Several reasons:

• the European language policy Multilingualism with Plurilingualism
• several World languages originated in Europe
• Europe (esp. the EU) is a key player in the Globalization (Bradford 2020)
• the concept of a monolingual state was carried out first in Europe (Heinrich 2012 is showing the french beginnings of monolingual language policy)

But how to proceed in the contemporary situation? The Covid-19 Pandemic is characterized by strong considerations about the 'public sector' (see Louis Meuleman in his IISD-article) especially seen in relation to the 'failure of Europe' (Politco & SChMP). But has there really be a failure of Europe? Some European countries i.e. some EU-member countries have reacted differently and here clearly visiable that the EU countries do not form a common society (see Lingua Policy of 20/3/2020). The health policy has been in the responsibility of the national governments and of course it is always easy to scapegoat Europe, but in my Europe as European Union did not fail in the Covid-19 Pandemic, at least up to now. But there other issues: Money and Languages and they are linked. In the Euro financial crisis after 2008 imposed Austerity mechanism especially on Greece, but also other countries are involved and even Germany has a strong austerity fincial policy, which is however not imposed by other countries, but by there own government. Also other countries are enforcing Austerity policy, which they call 'fiscal discipline' (the ECB has more) and there has also been strong objectives against this policy (Euroobserver). Actually there a strong North/South division on this issue. But has this to do with languages? There is only a small common public space in Europe, the different languages are effectively blocking a common European deliberation about financial affairs. While it is relatively easy to describe the situation, it quite complex to show an easy exit strategy. A common European language seems to be necessary for deliberation and observing the language situation on the ground (eg. with Eurobarometer an EU-Link, about the statistics, see also languageknowledge.eu) and that common language can only be English now. It seems to be an abstract and distant discussion during the pandemic, but in progressive Internationalists should keep in mind that the compromise the EU reached yesterday (Guardian has more) is only a first step and also letting a lot of questions open. This is the time for a discussion about an European Green deals, in various languages.       
References: 
Bradford, Anu (2020), The Brussels Effects. How the European Union Rules the World, Oxford University Press 
Heinrich, Patrick (2012),  The Making of Monolingual Japan: Language Ideology and Japanese Modernity, Multilingual Matters, Bristol