ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on European Union (EU) language policy, its role in the economic and cultural policies of the EU, and the vexed and conflicted relationship it has with EU citizenship. The extent, to which EU language policy is stutteringly played out in the Erasmus Programme, and the effects of this on EU citizenship, emerges as a central issue in the student interviews. The European Parliament uses them all as working languages. The EU Commission conducts its business in English, French and German, English being the main working language, since it is the second language of most of the officials and diplomats from central and Eastern Europe. The objectives of the EU’s unofficial but pervasive language policy dovetail with those of the Erasmus Programme and include the advancement of language learning and linguistic diversity and the cultivation of European citizenship.
