Study: Vast majority of EU citizens are marginalized by dominance of English language

The European Union has 27 member countries and 23 official languages, but its official business is carried out primarily in one language — English. Yet the striking findings of a new study show that barely a third of the EU’s 500 million citizens speak English.

What about the other two-thirds? They are linguistically disenfranchised, say the study’s authors. For the EU’s non-English speakers, their native languages are of limited use in the EU’s political, legal, communal and business spheres.

http://www.sciencecodex.com/read/study_vast_majority_of_eu_citizens_are_marginalized_by_dominance_of_english_language-85159

Superb video that explains why this is happening.

EU Commissioner Calls For New Tools For Bloggers Living In Dictatorships:

http://www.businessinsider.com/blogs-dictatorships-2011-12

The European Union should help teach bloggers living under oppressive regimes how to communicate freely and avoid detection, and develop technology to help them, the bloc’s digital affairs commissioner, Neelie Kroes, said Friday.

Below, we hear from a well known Iranian political blogger:

Is the Euro Crisis impacted by cultural diversity of its member states?

The European Union is an amazing attempt at merging many governments and economies that are not only seperated by religion, politics and social reforms, but also by cultural differences.

The problems facing the EU is as old as the problems with societies in the Middle East. The cultural differences, the way the people think and the way they deal with issues.

http://www.fxempire.com/news/economic-news/cultural-differences-between-france-and-germany/

Above link goes to an article about cultural differences between France and Germany that create difficulty for President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel to agree on details of the Euro Crisis plan.