- Who
- European Union
- What
- 24 total number
- Where
- Belgium (Brussels)
- When
- 2013
With the addition of Croatian in 2013, the European Union (EU) now has 24 official languages – the most of any international organisation. They are: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish. The task of translating between these languages is shouldered by thousands of translators, a process that costs the EU some 330 million Euro (£287 million) per year.
Every country joining the EU must nominate a primary language, and only Britain has English registered as its primary language. Following the result of the 2016 UK Brexit referendum, this could mean that English ceases to be an official EU language over the course of the coming years.
