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To make our EU intellectually and morally stronger, it is imperative to start thinking about introducing a common second language for all the citizens of the EU.

Transforming the economically successful EU into a real federal democratic United States of Europe implies as a condition sine qua non that all the citizens must be able to communicate and interact freely with each other without the cumbersome highly bureaucratic and indeed very expensive intermediation of qualified translators. The fact that the EU is blessed with so many different national and regional languages is unquestionably an enormous enrichment of our European culture and civilization. Alas, every person is endowed with a limited capacity to learn foreign tongues and as there are so many national and regional languages in the EU, this limits the scope of interaction and of spontaneous communication and intellectual curiosity in an important way.

One can spend his whole life learning European languages and still not mastering more than a handful of our beautiful culturally enriching languages. Variety and diversity in languages is a big plus in our European civilization and culture but it may not impair or hinder communication between the + 440 thousands citizens of the EU. Today we witness the Renaissance of so many local and regional languages that have been persecuted, suppressed and indeed forbidden by some of the national states. Thanks to the weakening grip of the national states on the individual and the realisation that one Europe in its cultural diversity is our future, these many regional languages are making a truly wonderful comeback.

This without any question positive evolution makes the acquisition of the knowledge of one common language for all the citizens of the EU even more urgent and necessary. The EU needs one common second language, intelligible and usable by all Europeans, for open and spontaneous communication has to be one of the cornerstones of a further dynamic and positive integration of Europe. This leads to the question of which language is best suited to this indeed very important task.

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Is there a European language with a lot of soft power so as to be able to seduce millions and millions of EU-citizens wanting to learn and use that language as a second mother tongue, enabling EU-wide open and direct communication in person? Is there a language that also enables its users to communicate freely with people in faraway countries and continents, to interact with other cultures and civilizations? Is there perhaps a European language that does not discriminate or favours one nation or region above all the other regions and nations; a so to speak politically and culturally neutral language that can be used by all Europeans as their second mother tongue? A tongue that is not too nativist sounding to nearly every region or nation in the EU?

Yes happily for us Europeans there is exactly one such European language. An official language in the EU only to Eire, a language widely used in the world of literature, in music, in the motion picture industry, in science and all matters of technology, in international trade and collaboration. A language used in India, in parts of Africa and in the North of the Americas: ‘English’ it is!

The fact that the UK did quit the EU is no argument, for English is important because of the many millions who use it worldwide; English as a language has become so important nearly in spite of the little England mentality I daresay. Transforming the EU into a very own federal democratic United States of Europe to the image of the successful United States of America requires establishing ‘English’ as our common second mother tongue for al the citizens of our EU.