182-513: The European Union (EU) has 24 official languages , of which three – English , French and German – were considered "procedural" languages but this notion was abandoned by the European Commission (whereas the European Parliament accepts all official languages as working languages ). In fact English and French are used in the day-to-day workings of
364-568: A lingua franca for administrative, scholarly, religious, political, and other purposes in parts of the present-day European Union. After Athens and other Greek city-states of the 6th to 4th centuries BC, the first documented political entity historically verifiable in Europe was the Roman Republic , traditionally founded in 509 BC, the successor-state to the Etruscan city-state confederacies . Latin as
546-779: A customs union . They also signed another pact creating the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) for cooperation in developing nuclear power. Both treaties came into force in 1958. Although the EEC and Euratom were created separately from the ECSC, they shared the same courts and the Common Assembly. The EEC was headed by Walter Hallstein ( Hallstein Commission ) and Euratom was headed by Louis Armand ( Armand Commission ) and then Étienne Hirsch ( Hirsch Commission ). The OEEC
728-542: A lingua franca of Europe was rivalled only by Greek. It is serving as honourable and ceremonial language in some of the oldest European universities in the 21st century, and has operated as the official language of the Roman Catholic Church until today. Latin, along with Greek, was at the core of education in Europe from the schools of rhetoric of the Roman Republic in all of its provinces and territories, through
910-639: A proposal that linked funding with adherence to the rule of law . The budget included a COVID-19 recovery fund of €750 billion. The budget may still be approved if Hungary and Poland withdraw their vetoes after further negotiations in the council and the European Council . Bodies combatting fraud have also been established, including the European Anti-fraud Office and the European Public Prosecutor's Office . The latter
1092-422: A supranational political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe. The Union has a total area of 4,233,255 km (1,634,469 sq mi) and an estimated total population of over 449 million. The EU has often been described as a sui generis political entity combining the characteristics of both a federation and a confederation . Containing 5.8% of
1274-518: A " collective head of state " and ratifies important documents (for example, international agreements and treaties). Tasks for the president of the European Council are ensuring the external representation of the EU, driving consensus and resolving divergences among member states, both during meetings of the European Council and over the periods between them. The European Council should not be mistaken for
1456-461: A , an , the ) or German ( der, die, das, ein, eine ). A whole verb or a noun is described without articles and the grammatical gender is found from the word's termination. It is enough to say barka ('a' or 'the barge'), Noetova barka ('Noah's ark'). The gender is known in this case to be feminine. In declensions , endings are normally changed; see below. If one should like to somehow distinguish between definiteness or indefiniteness of
1638-507: A definitive schedule on the gradual reduction of the derogation of the Irish language. This regulation outlined a schedule of gradual reduction spread across five years starting from 2016. The derogation was ultimately revoked on 1 January 2022, making Irish a fully recognised EU language for the first time in the state's history. Irish is the only official language of the EU that is not the most widely spoken language in any member state. According to
1820-425: A hybrid system of supranational and intergovernmental decision-making, and according to the principle of conferral (which says that it should act only within the limits of the competences conferred on it by the treaties ) and of subsidiarity (which says that it should act only where an objective cannot be sufficiently achieved by the member states acting alone). Laws made by the EU institutions are passed in
2002-532: A mere 2.8%. During World War II , Slovenia was divided among the Axis Powers of Fascist Italy , Nazi Germany , and Hungary . Each of the occupying powers tried to either discourage or entirely suppress Slovene. Following World War II, Slovenia became part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . Slovene was one of the official languages of the federation. In the territory of Slovenia, it
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#17330923806932184-463: A noun, one would say (prav/natanko/ravno) tista barka ('that/precise/exact barge') for 'the barge' and neka/ena barka ('some/a barge') for 'a barge'. Definiteness of a noun phrase can also be discernible through the ending of the accompanying adjective. One should say rdeči šotor ('[exactly that] red tent') or rdeč šotor ('[a] red tent'). This difference is observable only for masculine nouns in nominative or accusative case. Because of
2366-620: A prominent Slovene linguist, commented that, although Slovene is not an endangered language, its scope has been shrinking, especially in science and higher education. The language is spoken by about 2.5 million people, mainly in Slovenia, but also by Slovene national minorities in Friuli-Venezia Giulia , Italy (around 90,000 in Venetian Slovenia , Resia Valley , Canale Valley , Province of Trieste and in those municipalities of
2548-525: A reaction to World War I and its aftermath. In this light the first advances for the idea of European integration were made. In 1920 John Maynard Keynes proposed a European customs union for the struggling post-war European economies, and in 1923 the oldest organisation for European integration, the Paneuropean Union was founded, led by Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi , who later would found in June 1947
2730-601: A record of a proto-Slovene that was spoken in a more scattered territory than modern Slovene, which included most of the present-day Austrian states of Carinthia and Styria , as well as East Tyrol , the Val Pusteria in South Tyrol , and some areas of Upper and Lower Austria . By the 15th century, most of the northern areas were gradually Germanized : the northern border of the Slovene-speaking territory stabilized on
2912-748: A relic from the now modern Russian yery character ⟨ы⟩ , which is itself usually transliterated as ⟨y⟩ ; /j/ as ⟨y⟩ ; /l/ as ⟨ll⟩ ; /ʋ/ as ⟨w⟩ ; /ʒ/ as ⟨ʃ⟩ , ⟨ʃʃ⟩ or ⟨ʃz⟩ . The standard Slovene orthography, used in almost all situations, uses only the letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet plus ⟨č⟩ , ⟨š⟩ , and ⟨ž⟩ . The letters ⟨q⟩ , ⟨w⟩ , ⟨x⟩ , and ⟨y⟩ are not included: /uʷ/ The orthography thus underdifferentiates several phonemic distinctions: In
3094-588: A request of the Alternative Democratic Reform Party (ADR) to make Luxembourgish an official language of the European Union citing financial reasons and also that German and French being already official languages would be sufficient for the needs of Luxembourg. The Romani people , numbering over two million in the EU, speak the Romani language (actually numerous different languages), which
3276-594: A right of unilateral withdrawal under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. In addition, the principle of subsidiarity requires that only those matters that need to be determined collectively are so determined. Under the principle of supremacy , national courts are required to enforce the treaties that their member states have ratified, even if doing so requires them to ignore conflicting national law, and (within limits) even constitutional provisions. The direct effect and supremacy doctrines were not explicitly set out in
3458-642: A set number of seats and is divided into sub-national constituencies where this does not affect the proportional nature of the voting system. In the ordinary legislative procedure , the European Commission proposes legislation, which requires the joint approval of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union to pass. This process applies to nearly all areas, including the EU budget . The parliament
3640-444: A singular participle combined with a plural auxiliary verb (known as polvikanje ) signals a somewhat more friendly and less formal attitude while maintaining politeness: The use of nonstandard forms ( polvikanje ) might be frowned upon by many people and would not likely be used in a formal setting. The use of the 3rd person plural oni ('they') form (known as onikanje in both direct address and indirect reference; this
3822-602: A sizeable community of about 3.5 million in Germany and as a major immigrant language elsewhere in the EU , e.g. in and around Paris. Russian is also understood by a majority of ethnic Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians born before c. 1980, since, as official language of the Soviet Union , it was a compulsory school subject in those countries that were part of the Soviet Union . To a lesser extent, this legacy also holds true among
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#17330923806934004-845: A threat, in reality the actual concern was for the Soviet Union. A few days later came the announcement of the Truman Doctrine which pledged American support for democracies to counter the Soviets. Immediately following the February 1948 coup d'état by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia , the London Six-Power Conference was held, resulting in the Soviet boycott of the Allied Control Council and its incapacitation, an event marking
4186-486: A unified standard. In negotiations with Croatia , however, it was agreed that the Croatian standard would become a separate official EU language, as none of the other states at issue had yet been admitted to the EU. Some regional or minority languages spoken within the EU do not have official recognition at EU level. Some of them may have some official status within the member state and count many more speakers than some of
4368-497: A variety of forms. Generally speaking, they can be classified into two groups: those which come into force without the necessity for national implementation measures (regulations) and those which specifically require national implementation measures (directives). EU policy is in general promulgated by EU directives , which are then implemented in the domestic legislation of its member states , and EU regulations , which are immediately enforceable in all member states. Lobbying at
4550-563: A violent policy of Fascist Italianization ; the same policy was applied to Slovene speakers in Venetian Slovenia , Gorizia and Trieste . Between 1923 and 1943, all public use of Slovene in these territories was strictly prohibited, and Slovene-language activists were persecuted by the state. After the Carinthian Plebiscite of 1920, a less severe policy of Germanization took place in the Slovene-speaking areas of southern Carinthia which remained under Austrian administration. After
4732-450: A vowel. Before a consonant or word-finally, they are reduced to /l/ , /n/ and /r/ respectively. This is reflected in the spelling in the case of /rj/ , but not for /lj/ and /nj/ . Under certain (somewhat unpredictable) circumstances, /l/ at the end of a syllable may become [w] , merging with the allophone of /ʋ/ in that position. Slovene has an eight-vowel (or, according to Peter Jurgec, nine-vowel) system, in comparison to
4914-526: Is a European Commission economic recovery package to support the EU member states to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic , in particular those that have been particularly hard hit. It is sometimes styled NextGenerationEU and Next Gen EU , and also called the European Union Recovery Instrument . Agreed in principle by the European Council on 21 July 2020 and adopted on 14 December 2020,
5096-642: Is a decentralized independent body of the European Union (EU), established under the Treaty of Lisbon between 22 of the 27 states of the EU following the method of enhanced cooperation . The European Public Prosecutor's Office investigate and prosecute fraud against the budget of the European Union and other crimes against the EU's financial interests including fraud concerning EU funds of over €10,000 and cross-border VAT fraud cases involving damages above €10 million. Member states retain in principle all powers except those that they have agreed collectively to delegate to
5278-409: Is a distinction between animate and inanimate nouns. This is only relevant for masculine nouns and only in the singular, at odds with some other Slavic languages, e.g. Russian, for which it is also relevant in the plural for all genders. Animate nouns have an accusative singular form that is identical to the genitive, while for inanimate nouns the accusative singular is the same as the nominative. Animacy
5460-618: Is based in Kirchberg, Luxembourg City alongside the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Auditors. Constitutionally, the EU bears some resemblance to both a confederation and a federation , but has not formally defined itself as either. (It does not have a formal constitution: its status is defined by the Treaty of European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of
5642-667: Is based mostly on semantics and is less rigid than gender. Generally speaking a noun is animate if it refers to something that is generally thought to have free will or the ability to move of its own accord. This includes all nouns for people and animals. All other nouns are inanimate, including plants and other non-moving life forms, and also groups of people or animals. However, there are some nouns for inanimate objects that are generally animate, which mostly include inanimate objects that are named after people or animals. This includes: There are no definite or indefinite articles as in English (
Languages of the European Union - Misplaced Pages Continue
5824-423: Is fully multilingual from the outset. Non-institutional EU bodies are not legally obliged to make language arrangement for all the 24 languages The translations are expensive. According to the EU's English-language website, the cost of maintaining the institutions’ policy of multilingualism—i.e., the cost of translation and interpretation—was €1,123 million in 2005, which is 1% of the annual general budget of
6006-426: Is in fact used by some European Parliament constituents as a spoken dialect of Portuguese due to its similarity with this language. Luxembourgish ( Luxembourg ) and Turkish ( Cyprus ) are the only two national languages that are not official languages of the EU. Neither Luxembourg nor Cyprus have yet used the provision of 13 June 2005 resolution to benefit from use in official EU institutions. On 26 February 2016 it
6188-463: Is inconsistent with EU law. It is not possible to appeal against the decisions of national courts in the CJEU, but rather national courts refer questions of EU law to the CJEU. However, it is ultimately for the national court to apply the resulting interpretation to the facts of any given case. Although, only courts of final appeal are bound to refer a question of EU law when one is addressed. The treaties give
6370-623: Is not official in any EU member state or polity, except for being an official minority language of Sweden and Finland . Moreover, Romani mass media and educational institution presences are near-negligible. Though not an official language of the European Union, Russian is spoken in all member states that were part of the Soviet Union (and before that the Russian Empire ). Russian is the native language of about 1.6 million Baltic Russians residing in Estonia , Latvia , and Lithuania , as well as
6552-580: Is often adjusted for emphasis or stylistic reasons, although basically it is an SVO language. It has a T–V distinction : the use of the V-form demonstrates a respectful attitude towards superiors and the elderly, while it can be sidestepped through the passive form. Standard Slovene is the national standard language that was formed in the 18th and 19th century, based on Upper and Lower Carniolan dialect groups , more specifically on language of Ljubljana and its adjacent areas. The Lower Carniolan dialect group
6734-593: Is organised as a directorial system , where the executive power is jointly exercised by several people. The executive branch consists of the European Council and European Commission. The European Council sets the broad political direction of the Union. It convenes at least four times a year and comprises the president of the European Council (presently António Costa ), the president of the European Commission and one representative per member state (either its head of state or head of government ). The high representative of
6916-613: Is proved by the survival of certain ritual formulas in Slovene (such as the ritual installation of the Dukes of Carinthia). The words Buge waz primi, gralva Venus! ('God be With You, Queen Venus!'), with which Bernhard von Spanheim greeted the poet Ulrich von Liechtenstein , who was travelling around Europe in guise of Venus, upon his arrival in Carinthia in 1227 (or 1238), is another example of some level of Slovene knowledge among high nobility in
7098-541: Is recognised by the Constitution of a Member State on all or part of its territory or the use of which as a national language is authorised by law." The official use of such languages will be authorised on the basis of an administrative arrangement concluded between the council and the requesting member state. Although Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician are not nationwide official languages in Spain, as co-official languages in
7280-505: Is similar to using Sie in German) as an ultra-polite form is now archaic or dialectal. It is associated with servant-master relationships in older literature, the child-parent relationship in certain conservative rural communities, and parishioner-priest relationships. Foreign words used in Slovene are of various types depending on the assimilation they have undergone. The types are: The loanwords are mostly from German and Italian , while
7462-502: Is the final body to approve or reject the proposed membership of the commission, and can attempt motions of censure on the commission by appeal to the Court of Justice . The president of the European Parliament carries out the role of speaker in Parliament and represents it externally. The president and vice-presidents are elected by MEPs every two and a half years. The judicial branch of
Languages of the European Union - Misplaced Pages Continue
7644-534: Is the most commonly used. The most widely understood language in the EU is English, which is understood by 44% of all adults, while German is the most widely used mother tongue, spoken by 18%. French is an official language in all three of the cities that are political centres of the Union: Brussels , Belgium; Strasbourg , France; and Luxembourg City , Luxembourg. Since the exit of the United Kingdom from
7826-485: Is then able to recruit staff from among the pool of candidates selected by EPSO. On average, EPSO receives around 60,000–70,000 applications a year with around 1,500–2,000 candidates recruited by the European Union institutions. The European Ombudsman is the ombudsman branch of the European Union that holds the institutions, bodies and agencies of the EU to account, and promotes good administration. The Ombudsman helps people, businesses and organisations facing problems with
8008-635: Is universal, though. At least five different Sami languages are spoken in Sweden, but "Sami language" (undifferentiated) is recognised as an official minority language in Sweden , and is co-official with Swedish in four municipalities in Norrbotten County (Swedish Lapland). Most of Sami speakers speak Northern Sami (5,000–6,000 speakers), although there are ca. 1,000–2,000 Lule Sami speakers and 600 Southern Sami speakers. Also Ume Sámi and Pite Sámi are spoken in Sweden. For millennia, Latin served as
8190-519: The Anschluss of 1938, the use of Slovene was strictly forbidden in Carinthia, as well. This accelerated a process of language shift in Carinthia, which continued throughout the second half of the 20th century: according to the Austro-Hungarian census of 1910, around 21% of inhabitants of Carinthia spoke Slovene in their daily communication; by 1951, this figure dropped to less than 10%, and by 2001 to
8372-603: The Balkans in southeastern Europe; they include Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Polish, Slovak, and Slovene. The Baltic languages , Latvian and Lithuanian; the Celtic languages , including Irish; and Greek are also Indo-European. Outside the Indo-European family, Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian are Uralic languages , while Maltese is the only Afroasiatic language with official status in the EU. Most official EU languages are written in
8554-697: The Bretton Woods System (1944). In 1943 at the Moscow Conference and Tehran Conference , plans to establish joint institutions for a post-war world and Europe increasingly became a part of the agenda. This led to a decision at the Yalta Conference in 1944 to form a European Advisory Commission , later replaced by the Council of Foreign Ministers and the Allied Control Council , following
8736-461: The Copenhagen criteria for candidate members to join the EU were agreed upon in June 1993. The expansion of the EU introduced a new level of complexity and discord. In 1995, Austria, Finland, and Sweden joined the EU. In 2002, euro banknotes and coins replaced national currencies in 12 of the member states. Since then, the eurozone has increased to encompass 20 countries. The euro currency became
8918-658: The Council of Europe , an international organisation independent of the EU and based in Strasbourg. The European Commission acts both as the EU's executive arm , responsible for the day-to-day running of the EU, and also the legislative initiator , with the sole power to propose laws for debate. The commission is 'guardian of the Treaties' and is responsible for their efficient operation and policing. It has 27 European commissioners for different areas of policy, one from each member state, though commissioners are bound to represent
9100-403: The Council of Ministers is translated into Irish, and interpretation from Irish was available at European Parliament plenary sessions and some Council meetings. The cost of translation, interpretation, publication, and legal services involved in making Irish an official EU language was estimated at just under €3.5 million a year. On 3 December 2015, a new regulation passed by the council had set
9282-531: The Court of Justice of the European Union , the European Central Bank and the European Court of Auditors . Competence in scrutinising and amending legislation is shared between the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament, while executive tasks are performed by the European Commission and in a limited capacity by the European Council (not to be confused with the aforementioned Council of
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#17330923806939464-460: The Croatian written standard as an official EU language, the EU should instead adopt a single unified literary form that would encompass several nearly-identical written standards of the same language, historically known as Serbo-Croatian , the official language of Yugoslavia until its disintegration and the division of the language among ethnic lines. In addition to Croatian, this would include
9646-784: The European Ombudsman , Nikiforos Diamandouros , and the Spanish ambassador in the EU, Carlos Bastarreche, signed an agreement in Brussels to allow Spanish citizens to address complaints to the European Ombudsman in Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician, all three co-official languages in Spain. According to the agreement, a translation body, which will be set up and financed by the Spanish government, will be responsible for translating complaints submitted in these languages. In turn, it will translate
9828-721: The European Parliamentary Union (EPU). Aristide Briand —who was Prime Minister of France , a follower of the Paneuropean Union, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate for the Locarno Treaties —delivered a widely recognized speech at the League of Nations in Geneva on 5 September 1929 for a federal Europe to secure Europe and settle the historic Franco-German enmity . With large-scale war being waged in Europe once again in
10010-450: The European integration project or the construction of Europe ( French : la construction européenne ). The following timeline outlines the legal inception of the European Union (EU)—the principal framework for this unification. The EU inherited many of its present responsibilities from the European Communities (EC), which were founded in the 1950s in the spirit of the Schuman Declaration . The European Union operates through
10192-406: The Hertenstein Congress of the Union of European Federalists , one of the then founded and later constituting members of the European Movement . One month later, the French Union was installed by the new Fourth French Republic to direct the decolonization of its colonies so that they would become parts of a European community. By 1947 a growing rift between the western Allied Powers and
10374-484: The Indo-European language family . Most of its 2.5 million speakers are the inhabitants of Slovenia , majority of them ethnic Slovenes . As Slovenia is part of the European Union , Slovene is also one of its 24 official and working languages . Its syntax is highly fusional , and it has a dual grammatical number , an archaic feature shared with some other Indo-European languages . Two accentual norms (one characterized by pitch accent ) are used. Its flexible word order
10556-442: The Latin script . The two exceptions are Greek , which is written in the Greek script , and Bulgarian , which is written in Cyrillic script . With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of the European Union , following the Latin and Greek scripts. The original design of euro banknotes had the word euro written in both Latin (Euro) and Greek (Ευρώ) letters;
10738-411: The Lisbon Treaty entered into force and reformed many aspects of the EU. In particular, it changed the legal structure of the European Union, merging the EU three pillars system into a single legal entity provisioned with a legal personality , created a permanent president of the European Council , the first of which was Herman Van Rompuy , and strengthened the position of the high representative of
10920-399: The Marshall Plan , which led to the Soviets creating Comecon in response. The ensuing Hague Congress of May 1948 was a pivotal moment in European integration, as it led to the creation of the European Movement International , the College of Europe and most importantly to the foundation of the Council of Europe on 5 May 1949 (which is now Europe Day ). The Council of Europe was one of
11102-401: The Protestant Reformation . The most prominent authors from this period are Primož Trubar , who wrote the first books in Slovene; Adam Bohorič , the author of the first Slovene grammar; and Jurij Dalmatin , who translated the entire Bible into Slovene. From the high Middle Ages up to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, in the territory of present-day Slovenia, German
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#173309238069311284-421: The Province of Gorizia bordering with Slovenia), in southern Carinthia , some parts of Styria in Austria (25,000) and in the western part of Croatian Istria bordering with Slovenia. It is also spoken in Rijeka and Zagreb (11,800-13,100), in southwestern Hungary (3-5,000), in Serbia (5,000), and by the Slovene diaspora throughout Europe and the rest of the world (around 300,000), particularly in
11466-426: The Serbian , Bosnian , and Montenegrin written standards, all of them based in the same spoken dialect of Eastern Herzegovina , with the goal of reducing potential translation and interpretation costs if the other Western Balkan states eventually joined the EU as well. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was cited as an example of an international body that had conducted business in such
11648-600: The Slavic languages , together with Serbo-Croatian . It is close to the Chakavian and especially Kajkavian dialects of Serbo-Croatian, but genealogically more distant from the Shtokavian dialect , the basis for the Bosnian , Croatian , Montenegrin , and Serbian standard languages. Slovene in general, and Prekmurje Slovene in particular, shares the highest level of mutual intelligibility with transitional Kajkavian dialects of Hrvatsko Zagorje and Međimurje . Furthermore, Slovene shares certain linguistic characteristics with all South Slavic languages , including those of
11830-425: The Slovene Lands where compulsory schooling was in languages other than Standard Slovene, as was the case with the Carinthian Slovenes in Austria, and the Slovene minority in Italy . For example, the Resian and Torre (Ter) dialects in the Italian Province of Udine differ most from other Slovene dialects. Slovene is an Indo-European language belonging to the Western subgroup of the South Slavic branch of
12012-438: The Soviet Union became evident as a result of the rigged 1947 Polish legislative election , which constituted an open breach of the Yalta Agreement . March of that year saw two important developments. First was the signing of the Treaty of Dunkirk between France and the United Kingdom . The treaty assured mutual assistance in the event of future military aggression against either nation. Though it officially named Germany as
12194-495: The United States (most notably Ohio , home to an estimated 3,400 speakers), Canada , Argentina , Australia and South Africa . Slovene is sometimes characterized as the most diverse Slavic language in terms of dialects , with different degrees of mutual intelligibility. Accounts of the number of dialects range from as few as seven dialects, often considered dialect groups or dialect bases that are further subdivided into as many as 50 dialects. Other sources characterize
12376-419: The institutions of the EU . Institutions have the right to define the linguistic regime of their working but the Commission and a number of other institutions did not do this as indicated by several Court judgments The EU asserts that it is in favour of linguistic diversity. This principle is enshrined in the EU Charter of fundamental rights (art. 22) and in the Treaty on European Union (art. 3(3) TEU). In
12558-457: The monetary branch of the European Union, the prime component of the Eurosystem and the European System of Central Banks. It is one of the world's most important central banks . The ECB Governing Council makes monetary policy for the Eurozone and the European Union, administers the foreign exchange reserves of EU member states, engages in foreign exchange operations, and defines the intermediate monetary objectives and key interest rate of
12740-586: The world population in 2020, EU member states generated a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of around US$ 16.6 trillion in 2022, constituting approximately one sixth of global nominal GDP . Additionally, all EU states except Bulgaria have a very high Human Development Index according to the United Nations Development Programme . Its cornerstone, the Customs Union , paved the way to establishing an internal single market based on standardised legal framework and legislation that applies in all member states in those matters, and only those matters, where
12922-455: The 16th century, and ultimately led to the formation of more standard language. The Upper dialect was also used by most authors during the language revival in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and was also the language spoken by France Prešeren , who, like most of Slovene writers and poets, lived and worked in Ljubljana, where speech was growing closer to the Upper Carniolan dialect group. Unstandardized dialects are more preserved in regions of
13104-466: The 1910s is frequently closer to modern Slovene than a text from the 1920s and 1930s. Between 1920 and 1941, the official language of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was defined as "Serbo-Croato-Slovene", which was in practice merely Serbo-Croatian. In Slovenia however, Slovene remained in use in education and administration. Many state institutions used only Serbo-Croatian, and a Slovene–Serbo-Croatian bilingualism
13286-640: The 1930s and becoming World War II , the question of what to fight against and what for, had to be agreed on. A first agreement was the Declaration of St James's Palace of 1941, when Europe's resistance gathered in London. This was expanded on by the 1941 Atlantic Charter , establishing the Allies and their common goals, inciting a new wave of global international institutions like the United Nations ( founded 1945 ) or
13468-608: The 1999 national Framework Law on the Country's historical linguistic minorities , in accordance with the Article 6 of the Italian Constitution . However, many languages other than Italian and the above-mentioned twelve are spoken across the country, most of them being either Gallo-Italic or Italo-Dalmatian , which lack any sort of official recognition and protection. The Spanish governments have sought to give some official status in
13650-442: The 19th century, when the cultures of vernacular languages and the "national languages" started to gain ground and claim status. Today, several institutions of the European Union use Latin in their logos and domain names instead of listing their names in all the official languages. For example, the European Court of Justice has its website at "curia.europa.eu". The Court of Auditors uses Curia Rationum in its logo. The Council of
13832-645: The 20 EU member states that have fully implemented the economic and monetary union and use the euro currency . Through the Common Foreign and Security Policy , the union has developed a role in external relations and defence . It maintains permanent diplomatic missions throughout the world and represents itself at the United Nations , the World Trade Organization , the G7 and the G20 . Due to its global influence,
14014-505: The 2006 Irish census figures, there are 1.66 million people in Ireland with some ability to speak Irish, out of a population of 4.6 million, though only 538,500 use Irish on a daily basis (counting those who use it mainly in the education system) and just over 72,000 use Irish as a daily language outside the education system. At the time of Croatia's accession to the EU , some diplomats and officials suggested that, rather than accepting
14196-404: The 2nd person singular ti form (known as tikanje ) is officially limited to friends and family, talk among children, and addressing animals, it is increasingly used among the middle generation to signal a relaxed attitude or lifestyle instead of its polite or formal counterpart using the 2nd person plural vi form (known as vikanje ). An additional nonstandard but widespread use of
14378-471: The CJEU the power for consistent application of EU law across the EU as a whole. The court also acts as an administrative and constitutional court between the other EU institutions and the Member States and can annul or invalidate unlawful acts of EU institutions, bodies, offices and agencies. The General Court is a constituent court of the European Union. It hears actions taken against the institutions of
14560-417: The Council of the European Union and the "Council of Ministers", its former title), forms one half of the EU's legislature. It consists of a representative from each member state's government and meets in different compositions depending on the policy area being addressed . Notwithstanding its different configurations, it is considered to be one single body. In addition to the legislative functions, members of
14742-561: The Cyrillic spelling (Eвро) was added to the new Europa series of banknotes started in 2013 (see Linguistic issues concerning the euro ). Although Maltese is an official language, the Council set a transitional period of three years from 1 May 2004, during which the institutions were not obliged to draft all acts in Maltese. It was agreed that the council could extend this transitional period by an additional year, but decided not to. All new acts of
14924-547: The ECB and the national central banks (NCBs) of all 27 member states of the European Union. The ESCB is not the monetary authority of the eurozone, because not all EU member states have joined the euro. The ESCB's objective is price stability throughout the European Union. Secondarily, the ESCB's goal is to improve monetary and financial cooperation between the Eurosystem and member states outside
15106-479: The EU in 2020, the government of France has encouraged greater use of French as a working language. Luxembourgish and Turkish , which have official status in Luxembourg and Cyprus , respectively, are the only two official languages of EU member states that are not official languages of the EU. In 2023, the Spanish government requested that its co-official languages Catalan , Basque , and Galician be added to
15288-401: The EU administration by investigating complaints, as well as by proactively looking into broader systemic issues. The current Ombudsman is Emily O'Reilly . The European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) is the prosecutory branch of the union with juridical personality, established under the Treaty of Lisbon between 23 of the 27 states of the EU following the method of enhanced cooperation. It
15470-467: The EU are also working languages . Documents which a member state or a person subject to the jurisdiction of a member state sends to institutions of the Community may be drafted in any one of the official languages selected by the sender. The reply is drafted in the same language. Regulations and other documents of general application are drafted in the twenty-four official languages. The Official Journal of
15652-503: The EU by migrants and refugees who have left the region as a result of the Yugoslav wars and unrest there. There are large Chinese communities in France , Spain , Italy , and other countries. Old and recent Chinese migrants speak a number of Chinese varieties , in particular Cantonese and other southern Chinese varieties. However, Mandarin is becoming increasingly more prevalent due to
15834-400: The EU came into effect. This followed a unanimous decision on 13 June 2005 by EU foreign ministers that Irish would be made the 21st official language of the EU. However, a derogation previously stipulated that not all documents have to be translated into Irish as is the case with the other official languages. The regulation meant that legislation adopted by both the European Parliament and
16016-584: The EU for the languages of the autonomous communities of Spain , Catalan / Valencian , Galician and Basque . The 667th Council Meeting of the Council of the European Union in Luxembourg on 13 June 2005, decided to authorise limited use at EU level of languages recognised by member states other than the official working languages. The Council granted recognition to "languages other than the languages referred to in Council Regulation No 1/1958 whose status
16198-466: The EU has very limited influence in this area, as the content of educational systems is the responsibility of individual member states, a number of EU funding programmes actively promote language learning and linguistic diversity . All 24 official languages of the EU are accepted as working languages , but in practice only three – English, French, and German – are in wide general use in its institutions, and of these, English
16380-463: The EU institutions are allowed by law to choose their own language arrangements. The European Commission , for example, conducts its internal business in three languages, English , French , and German (sometimes called "procedural languages"), and goes fully multilingual only for public information and communication purposes. The European Parliament , on the other hand, has members who need working documents in their own languages, so its document flow
16562-543: The EU is bowing to pressure to exclude Russian speakers in the Baltic in this way". In Finland, the Sami languages Northern Sami (ca. 2,000 speakers), Skolt Sami (400) and Inari Sami (300) have limited local recognition in certain municipalities of Finnish Lapland . Furthermore, legislation specifically concerning the Sami must be translated to these languages. Bilingualism with Finnish
16744-590: The EU level by special interest groups is regulated to try to balance the aspirations of private initiatives with public interest decision-making process. The European Union had an agreed budget of €170.6 billion in 2022. The EU had a long-term budget of €1,082.5 billion for the period 2014–2020, representing 1.02% of the EU-28's GNI. In 1960, the budget of the European Community was 0.03 per cent of GDP. Of this, €54bn subsidised agriculture enterprise , €42bn
16926-460: The EU, language policy is the responsibility of member states, and the EU does not have a common language policy; EU institutions play a supporting role in this field, based on the principle of " subsidiarity "; they promote a European dimension in the member states' language policies. The EU encourages all its citizens to be multilingual ; specifically, it encourages them to be able to speak two languages in addition to their native language . Though
17108-784: The EU, or €2.28 per person per year. The EU Parliament has made clear that its member states have autonomy for language education, which by treaty the Union must respect. The vast majority of the 24 official EU languages belong to the Indo-European family : the three dominant subfamilies are the Germanic , Romance , and Slavic . Germanic languages are primarily spoken in central and northern Europe and include Danish, Dutch, English, German, and Swedish. Romance languages are mostly spoken in western and southern European regions; they include French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish. The Slavic languages are predominantly found in central Europe and
17290-420: The EU, which together with the Council of the European Union is tasked with amending and approving the European Commission's proposals. 705 members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are directly elected by EU citizens every five years on the basis of proportional representation . MEPs are elected on a national basis and they sit according to political groups rather than their nationality. Each country has
17472-567: The EU. Dutch , English , French , German , Greek , and Swedish are all official languages at the national level in multiple countries (see table above). In addition, Croatian , Czech , Danish , Hungarian , Italian , Slovak , and Slovene are official languages in multiple EU countries at the regional level. Furthermore, not all national languages have been accorded the status of official EU languages. These include Luxembourgish , an official language of Luxembourg since 1984, and Turkish , an official language of Cyprus . All languages of
17654-545: The EU. The ECB Executive Board enforces the policies and decisions of the Governing Council, and may direct the national central banks when doing so. The ECB has the exclusive right to authorise the issuance of euro banknotes . Member states can issue euro coins , but the volume must be approved by the ECB beforehand. The bank also operates the TARGET2 payments system. The European System of Central Banks (ESCB) consists of
17836-564: The EU. This was done in exchange for the support of the Catalan separatist party Junts for Francina Armengol 's candidacy for President of the Congress of Deputies . Without such support the PSOE would likely have been unable to form a new government and a second election would have been held in the same year. Galician in particular, not being itself a European Parliament official language, can be used and
18018-550: The Eastern subgroup, namely Bulgarian , Macedonian and Torlakian dialects. Mutual intelligibility with varieties of Serbo-Croatian is hindered by differences in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, Kajkavian being firmly the most mutually intelligible . Slovene has some commonalities with the West Slavic languages that are not found in other South Slavic languages. Like all Slavic languages , Slovene traces its roots to
18200-461: The European Community and the EU, and then made amendments to those founding treaties. These are power-giving treaties which set broad policy goals and establish institutions with the necessary legal powers to implement those goals. These legal powers include the ability to enact legislation which can directly affect all member states and their inhabitants. The EU has legal personality , with
18382-420: The European Council. The other 25 commissioners are subsequently appointed by the Council of the European Union in agreement with the nominated president. The 27 commissioners as a single body are subject to approval (or otherwise) by a vote of the European Parliament . All commissioners are first nominated by the government of the respective member state. The council, as it is now simply called (also called
18564-639: The European Recovery Program called Next Generation EU (NGEU). On 24 February 2022, after massing on the borders of Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces undertook an attempt for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The European Union imposed heavy sanctions on Russia and agreed on a pooled military aid package to Ukraine for lethal weapons funded via the European Peace Facility off-budget instrument. Next Generation EU ( NGEU )
18746-492: The European Treaties but were developed by the Court of Justice itself over the 1960s, apparently under the influence of its then most influential judge, Frenchman Robert Lecourt . The question whether the secondary law enacted by the EU has a comparable status in relation to national legislation, has been a matter of debate among legal scholars. The European Union is based on a series of treaties . These first established
18928-442: The European Union is published in the twenty-four official languages. Documents of major public importance or interest are produced in all official languages, but that accounts for a minority of the institutions′ work. Other documents—e.g., communications with the national authorities, decisions addressed to particular individuals or entities and correspondence—are translated only into the languages needed. For internal purposes
19110-465: The European Union adopted under the treaties (like Directives and Regulations ) did not have to be. When Ireland joined the EEC (now the EU ) in 1973, Irish was accorded "Treaty Language" status. This meant that the founding EU Treaty was restated in Irish. Irish was also listed in that treaty and all subsequent EU treaties as one of the authentic languages of the treaties. As a Treaty Language, Irish
19292-513: The European Union by individuals and member states, although certain matters are reserved for the Court of Justice. Decisions of the General Court can be appealed to the Court of Justice, but only on a point of law. Prior to the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty on 1 December 2009, it was known as the Court of First Instance. The European Central Bank (ECB) is one of the institutions of
19474-527: The European Union has been described by some scholars as an emerging superpower . The EU was established, along with its citizenship , when the Maastricht Treaty came into force in 1993, and was incorporated as an international legal juridical person upon entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009 . Its beginnings can be traced to the Inner Six states (Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg,
19656-525: The European Union understood that coal and steel were the two industries essential for waging war, and believed that by tying their national industries together, a future war between their nations became much less likely. In parallel with Schuman, the Pleven Plan of 1951 tried but failed to tie the institutions of the developing European community under the European Political Community , which
19838-410: The European Union ). It is more integrated than a traditional confederation of states because the general level of government widely employs qualified majority voting in some decision-making among the member states, rather than relying exclusively on unanimity. It is less integrated than a federal state because it is not a state in its own right: sovereignty continues to flow 'from the bottom up', from
20020-515: The European Union has its website at "consilium.europa.eu" and its logo showing Consilium . The European Union itself has a Latin motto : " In varietate concordia ". Under the European Company Regulation , companies can be incorporated as Societas Europaea (Latin for "European Company", often shortened to "SE" after the company's own proper name). Latin is one of the languages of IATE (the inter-institutional terminology database of
20202-474: The European Union is formally called the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and consists of two courts: the Court of Justice and the General Court . The Court of Justice is the supreme court of the European Union in matters of European Union law . As a part of the CJEU, it is tasked with interpreting EU law and ensuring its uniform application across all EU member states under Article 263 of
20384-607: The European Union). A wide variety of languages from other parts of the world are spoken by immigrant communities in EU countries. Turkish (which is also an official language of the EU member Cyprus) is spoken as a first language by an estimated 1% of the population in Belgium and the western part of Germany , and by 1% in the Netherlands . Other widely used migrant languages include Berber languages which are spoken by about 1% of
20566-481: The European Union). The monetary policy of the eurozone is determined by the European Central Bank. The interpretation and the application of EU law and the treaties are ensured by the Court of Justice of the European Union. The EU budget is scrutinised by the European Court of Auditors. There are also a number of ancillary bodies which advise the EU or operate in a specific area. The Union's executive branch
20748-579: The Eurozone countries , a surge in asylum seekers in 2015 , and the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU . A referendum in the UK on its membership of the European Union was held in 2016, with 51.9 per cent of participants voting to leave. The UK formally notified the European Council of its decision to leave on 29 March 2017, initiating the formal withdrawal procedure for leaving the EU ; following extensions to
20930-507: The French state, and regions are not permitted to bestow any such status themselves. The official language of Greece is Greek, and recognized minority languages are Armenian, Ladino and Turkish. Nevertheless, there are several other languages in Greece, which lack any recognition. These are Albanian, Aromanian , Megleno-Romanian (these last two usually being collectively known as "Vlach"), Romani and
21112-566: The German surrender and the Potsdam Agreement in 1945. By the end of the war, European integration became seen as an antidote to the extreme nationalism that had caused the war. On 19 September 1946, in a much recognized speech, Winston Churchill , speaking at the University of Zürich , reiterated his calls since 1930 for a "European Union" and "Council of Europe", coincidentally parallel to
21294-763: The Netherlands, and West Germany ) at the start of modern European integration in 1948, and to the Western Union , the International Authority for the Ruhr , the European Coal and Steel Community , the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community , which were established by treaties. These increasingly amalgamated bodies grew, with their legal successor the EU, both in size through
21476-505: The Ombudsman's decisions from Spanish into the language of the complainant. Until such a body is established the agreement will not become effective. Following the 2023 Spanish general election , the PSOE -led Spanish government sent a letter to the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union , asking for Catalan, Basque, and Galician to be added to the current 24 official languages of
21658-493: The Slavic varieties spoken in the country . Greece has been described as the only European Union member state that sticks to a "linguistic assimilationist ideology". Italy's official language is Italian, although twelve additional languages (namely Albanian , Catalan , German , Greek , Slovene , Croatian , French , Franco-Provençal , Friulian , Ladin , Occitan and Sardinian ) have been recognized as minority languages by
21840-483: The Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). The Court was established in 1952, and is based in Luxembourg . It is composed of one judge per member state – currently 27 – although it normally hears cases in panels of three, five or fifteen judges. The Court has been led by president Koen Lenaerts since 2015. The CJEU is the highest court of the European Union in matters of Union law . Its case-law provides that EU law has supremacy over any national law that
22022-430: The Union as a whole, though the exact delimitation has on occasions become a subject of scholarly or legal disputes. In certain fields, members have awarded exclusive competence and exclusive mandate to the Union. These are areas in which member states have entirely renounced their own capacity to enact legislation. In other areas, the EU and its member states share the competence to legislate. While both can legislate,
22204-609: The Union to be ready for the new members. In May 2024, concerns rise, that the outcome of the elections in June, can undermine some of the crucial policies of the EU in the domain of environment, diplomacy, economy . The war in Ukraine by creating inflation, lowering life level created a possibility of strong changes in the 2024 elections. Since the end of World War II , sovereign European countries have entered into treaties and thereby co-operated and harmonised policies (or pooled sovereignty ) in an increasing number of areas, in
22386-642: The Western Allies in 1949 to regulate the coal and steel industries of the Ruhr area in West Germany. Backed by the Marshall Plan with large funds coming from the United States since 1948, the ECSC became a milestone organisation, enabling European economic development and integration and being the origin of the main institutions of the EU such as the European Commission and Parliament . Founding fathers of
22568-485: The accessions of a further 22 states from 1973 to 2013, and in power through acquisitions of policy areas. In 2012, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize . The United Kingdom became the only member state to leave the EU , in 2020; ten countries are aspiring or negotiating to join it . Internationalism and visions of European unity had existed since well before the 19th century, but gained particularly as
22750-515: The areas around Trieste . During most of the Middle Ages, Slovene was a vernacular language of the peasantry, although it was also spoken in most of the towns on Slovenian territory, together with German or Italian. Although during this time, German emerged as the spoken language of the nobility, Slovene had some role in the courtly life of the Carinthian, Carniolan and Styrian nobility, as well. This
22932-561: The beginning of the Cold War . The year 1948 marked the beginning of the institutionalised modern European integration . In March 1948 the Treaty of Brussels was signed, establishing the Western Union (WU), followed by the International Authority for the Ruhr . Furthermore, the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC), the predecessor of the OECD, was also founded in 1948 to manage
23114-416: The council also have executive responsibilities, such as the development of a Common Foreign and Security Policy and the coordination of broad economic policies within the Union. The Presidency of the council rotates between member states, with each holding it for six months. Beginning on 1 July 2024, the position is held by Hungary. The European Parliament is one of three legislative institutions of
23296-542: The countries of Central and Eastern Europe . Assessing the progress of European integration the Messina Conference was held in 1955, ordering the Spaak report , which in 1956 recommended the next significant steps of European integration. In 1957, Belgium , France , Italy , Luxembourg , the Netherlands , and West Germany signed the Treaty of Rome , which created the European Economic Community (EEC) and established
23478-542: The end of words unless immediately followed by a word beginning with a vowel or a voiced consonant. In consonant clusters, voicing distinction is neutralized and all consonants assimilate the voicing of the rightmost segment, i.e. the final consonant in the cluster. In this context, [v] , [ɣ] and [d͡z] may occur as voiced allophones of /f/ , /x/ and /t͡s/ , respectively (e.g. vŕh drevésa [ʋrɣ dreˈʋesa] ). /ʋ/ has several allophones depending on context. The sequences /lj/ , /nj/ and /rj/ occur only before
23660-528: The ensuing détente led to establishment of a first truly pan-European body, the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), predecessor of the modern Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). In 1979, the first direct elections to the European Parliament were held. Greece joined in 1981. In 1985, Greenland left the Communities , following a dispute over fishing rights. During
23842-451: The entire cabinet, the final say in accepting or rejecting a candidate submitted for a given portfolio by a member state, and oversees the commission's permanent civil service. After the President, the most prominent commissioner is the high representative of the union for foreign affairs and security policy, who is ex-officio a vice-president of the European Commission and is also chosen by
24024-481: The eurozone. The European Court of Auditors (ECA) is the auditory branch of the European Union. It was established in 1975 in Luxembourg in order to improve EU financial management. It has 27 members (1 from each EU member-state) supported by approximately 800 civil servants. The European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) is the EU's civil service recruitment body and operates its selection of candidates via generalist and specialist competitions. Each institution
24206-483: The excessive usage of regionalisms. Regionalisms are mostly limited to culinary and agricultural expressions, although there are many exceptions. Some loanwords have become so deeply rooted in the local language that people have considerable difficulties in finding a standard expression for the dialect term (for instance, kremšnita meaning a type of custard cake is kremna rezina in Standard Slovene, but
24388-463: The first institutions to bring the sovereign states of (then only Western) Europe together, raising great hopes and fevered debates in the following two years for further European integration. It has since been a broad forum to further cooperation and shared issues, achieving for example the European Convention on Human Rights in 1950. Essential for the actual birth of the institutions of the EU
24570-505: The first novel in Slovene in 1866. This tendency was reversed in the Fin de siècle period by the first generation of modernist Slovene authors (most notably the writer Ivan Cankar ), who resorted to a more "pure" and simple language without excessive Serbo-Croatian borrowings. During the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the 1920s and 1930s, the influence of Serbo-Croatian increased again. This was opposed by
24752-415: The five-vowel system of Serbo-Croatian. Slovene nouns retain six of the seven Slavic noun cases: nominative , accusative , genitive , dative , locative and instrumental . There is no distinct vocative ; the nominative is used in that role. Nouns, adjectives and pronouns have three numbers: singular, dual and plural. Nouns in Slovene are either masculine, feminine or neuter gender. In addition, there
24934-432: The institutions were required to be adopted and published in Maltese from 30 April 2007. Irish previously had the status of "treaty language" before being upgraded to an official and working language in 2007. However, a temporary derogation was enforced until 1 January 2022. The designation of Irish as a "treaty language" meant that only the treaties of the European Union were translated into Irish, whereas Legal Acts of
25116-487: The instrument is worth € 750 billion . NGEU will operate from 2021 to 2026, and will be tied to the regular 2021–2027 budget of the EU's Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). The comprehensive NGEU and MFF packages are projected to reach €1824.3 billion. Preparing the Union for a new great enlargement is a political priority for the Union, with the goal of achieving over 35 member states by 2030. Institutional and budgetary reforms are being discussed in order to
25298-476: The interests of the EU as a whole rather than their home state. The leader of the 27 is the president of the European Commission (presently Ursula von der Leyen for 2019–2024, reelected for the 2024-2029 term), proposed by the European Council , following and taking into account the result of the European elections, and is then elected by the European Parliament. The President retains, as the leader responsible for
25480-433: The lack of article in Slovene and audibly insignificant difference between the masculine adjective forms, most dialects do not distinguish between definite and indefinite variants of the adjective, leading to hypercorrection when speakers try to use Standard Slovene. Slovene, like most other European languages, has a T–V distinction , or two forms of 'you' for formal and informal situations. Although informal address using
25662-549: The latter term is very rarely used in speech being considered inappropriate for non-literary registers ). Southwestern dialects incorporate many calques and loanwords from Italian, whereas eastern and northwestern dialects are replete with lexemes of German origin. Usage of such words hinders intelligibility between dialects and is greatly discouraged in formal situations. Slovene has a phoneme set consisting of 21 consonants and 8 vowels . Slovene has 21 distinctive consonant phonemes. All voiced obstruents are devoiced at
25844-664: The lesser-used official languages. The official languages of EU are in bold . In the list, language varieties classified as dialects of an official language by member countries are not included. However, many of these varieties may be viewed as separate languages: for instance, Scots (the Germanic language descended from Old English , not the Celtic language known as Scottish Gaelic ) and several Romance languages spoken in Spain, Portugal, France and Italy, such as Aragonese , Asturian , Mirandese , Lombard , Ligurian , Piedmontese , Venetian , Corsican , Neapolitan and Sicilian . The French constitution stipulates French as
26026-476: The line going from north of Klagenfurt to south of Villach and east of Hermagor in Carinthia, while in Styria it was more or less identical with the current Austrian-Slovenian border. This linguistic border remained almost unchanged until the late 19th century, when a second process of Germanization took place, mostly in Carinthia. Between the 9th and 12th century, proto-Slovene spread into northern Istria and in
26208-477: The medieval trivium and quadrivium , through the humanists and the Renaissance, all the way to Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (just to name one example of thousands of scientific works written in this language), to the public schools of all European countries, where Latin (along with Greek) was at the core of their curricula. Latin served as the undisputed European lingua franca until
26390-486: The member states can only legislate to the extent to which the EU has not. In other policy areas, the EU can only co-ordinate, support and supplement member state action but cannot enact legislation with the aim of harmonising national laws. That a particular policy area falls into a certain category of competence is not necessarily indicative of what legislative procedure is used for enacting legislation within that policy area. Different legislative procedures are used within
26572-702: The more recently borrowed and less assimilated words are typically from English . This alphabet ( abeceda ) was derived in the mid-1840s from the system created by the Croatian linguist Ljudevit Gaj . Intended for the Serbo-Croatian language (in all its varieties), it was patterned on the Czech alphabet of the 1830s. Before that /s/ was, for example, written as ⟨ ʃ ⟩ , ⟨ʃʃ⟩ or ⟨ſ⟩ ; /tʃ/ as ⟨tʃch⟩ , ⟨cz⟩ , ⟨tʃcz⟩ or ⟨tcz⟩ ; /i/ sometimes as ⟨y⟩ as
26754-585: The number of dialects as nine or eight. The Slovene proverb "Every village has its own voice" ( Vsaka vas ima svoj glas ) depicts the differences in dialects. The Prekmurje dialect used to have a written norm of its own at one point. The Resian dialects have an independent written norm that is used by their regional state institutions. Speakers of those two dialects have considerable difficulties with being understood by speakers of other varieties of Slovene, needing code-switching to Standard Slovene. Other dialects are mutually intelligible when speakers avoid
26936-527: The official languages of the EU. As of 30 July 2023, the official languages of the European Union , as stipulated in the latest amendment of Regulation No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community of 1958, are: The number of member states exceeds the number of official languages, as several national languages are shared by two or more countries in
27118-459: The older generation in parts of the EU that were formerly part of the Eastern bloc , such as the GDR . In March 2010 fact-sheets in Russian produced by the EU executive's offices in Latvia were withdrawn, provoking criticism from Plaid Cymru MEP and European Free Alliance group President Jill Evans who called European Commission to continue to provide information in non-official EU languages and commented that "it's disappointing to hear that
27300-400: The opening of the People's Republic of China . There are many Russian-speaking immigrants in Germany and France . Many immigrant communities in the EU have been in place for several generations now, and their members are bilingual , at ease both in the local language and in that of their community. European Union in Europe (dark grey) The European Union ( EU ) is
27482-524: The population of both the Netherlands and Belgium and by many Berber migrants in France, Spain, Italy and Germany. Arabic is spoken in many EU countries mainly in its Maghrebi and Levantine varieties. Maghrebi Arabic is spoken by migrants in France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Levantine Arabic is spoken by migrants in Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark, Austria and Greece. Languages from former Yugoslavia ( Serbian , Bosnian , Macedonian , Albanian , etc.) are spoken in many parts of
27664-415: The post-breakup influence of Serbo-Croatian on Slovene continued to a lesser extent, most prominently in slang in colloquial language . Joža Mahnič , a literary historian and president of the publishing house Slovenska matica , said in February 2008 that Slovene is a language rich enough to express everything, including the most sophisticated and specialised texts. In February 2010, Janez Dular ,
27846-425: The process, the UK left the European Union on 31 January 2020, though most areas of EU law continued to apply to the UK for a transition period which lasted until 31 December 2020. The early 2020s saw Denmark abolishing one of its three opt-outs and Croatia adopting the Euro . After the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic , the EU leaders agreed for the first time to create common debt to finance
28028-414: The region. The first printed Slovene words, stara pravda (meaning 'old justice' or 'old laws'), appeared in 1515 in Vienna in a poem of the German mercenaries who suppressed the Slovene peasant revolt : the term was presented as the peasants' motto and battle cry. Standard Slovene emerged in the second half of the 16th century, thanks to the works of Slovene Lutheran authors, who were active during
28210-412: The respective regions—pursuant to Spanish constitution, among other documents—they are eligible to benefit from official use in EU institutions under the terms of 13 June 2005 resolution of the Council of the European Union. The Spanish government has assented to the provisions in respect of these languages. The status of Catalan, spoken by over 9 million EU citizens (just over 1.8% of the total), has been
28392-425: The right to sign agreements and international treaties. Slovene language Slovene ( / ˈ s l oʊ v iː n / SLOH -veen or / s l oʊ ˈ v iː n , s l ə -/ sloh- VEEN , slə- ) or Slovenian ( / s l oʊ ˈ v iː n i ə n , s l ə -/ sloh- VEE -nee-ən, slə- ; slovenščina ) is a South Slavic language of the Balto-Slavic branch of
28574-533: The rise of Romantic nationalism in the 19th century, the cultural movements of Illyrism and Pan-Slavism brought words from Serbo-Croatian , specifically Croatian dialects, and Czech into standard Slovene, mostly to replace words previously borrowed from German. Most of these innovations have remained, although some were dropped in later development. In the second half of the 19th century, many nationalist authors made an abundant use of Serbo-Croatian words: among them were Fran Levstik and Josip Jurčič , who wrote
28756-408: The same category of competence, and even with the same policy area. The distribution of competences in various policy areas between member states and the union is divided into the following three categories: The European Union has seven principal decision-making bodies, its institutions : the European Parliament , the European Council , the Council of the European Union , the European Commission ,
28938-465: The same proto-Slavic group of languages that produced Old Church Slavonic . The earliest known examples of a distinct, written dialect connected to Slovene are from the Freising manuscripts , known in Slovene as Brižinski spomeniki . The consensus estimate of their date of origin is between 972 and 1039 (most likely before 1000). These religious writings are among the oldest surviving manuscripts in any Slavic language. The Freising manuscripts are
29120-413: The same year, the Schengen Agreement paved the way for the creation of open borders without passport controls between most member states and some non-member states. In 1986, the Single European Act was signed. Portugal and Spain joined in 1986. In 1990, after the fall of the Eastern Bloc , the former East Germany became part of the communities as part of a reunified Germany . The European Union
29302-476: The second-largest reserve currency in the world. In 2004, the EU saw its biggest enlargement to date when Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia , Hungary , Latvia , Lithuania , Malta , Poland , Slovakia , and Slovenia joined the union. In 2007, Bulgaria and Romania became EU members. Later that year, Slovenia adopted the euro, followed by Cyprus and Malta in 2008, Slovakia in 2009, Estonia in 2011, Latvia in 2014, and Lithuania in 2015. On 1 December 2009,
29484-449: The several peoples of the separate member states, rather than from a single undifferentiated whole. This is reflected in the fact that the member states remain the 'masters of the Treaties', retaining control over the allocation of competences to the union through constitutional change (thus retaining so-called Kompetenz-kompetenz ); in that they retain control of the use of armed force; they retain control of taxation; and in that they retain
29666-612: The sole language of France. Since the 2008 modifications , article 75-1 of the Constitution adds that "regional languages form part of the French heritage". Nevertheless, there exist a number of languages spoken by sizable minorities, such as Breton (a Celtic language), Basque , and several Romance languages such as Occitan , Catalan , Corsican and the various langues d'oïl (other than French), as well as Germanic languages spoken in Alsace-Lorraine (Central Franconian, High Franconian, Luxembourgish, and Alemannic) and French Flanders (Dutch). These languages enjoy no official status under
29848-411: The states have agreed to act as one. EU policies aim to ensure the free movement of people, goods, services and capital within the internal market; enact legislation in justice and home affairs; and maintain common policies on trade , agriculture , fisheries and regional development . Passport controls have been abolished for travel within the Schengen Area . The eurozone is a group composed of
30030-420: The subject of particular debate. On 11 December 1990, the use of Catalan was the subject of a European Parliament Resolution (resolution A3-169/90 on languages in the [European] Community and the situation of Catalan). On 16 November 2005, the President Peter Straub of the Committee of the Regions signed an agreement with the Spanish Ambassador to the EU, Carlos Bastarreche [ es ] , approving
30212-423: The three communities, which were collectively referred to as the European Communities . Jean Rey presided over the first merged commission ( Rey Commission ). In 1973, the communities were enlarged to include Denmark (including Greenland), Ireland, and the United Kingdom . Norway had negotiated to join at the same time, but Norwegian voters rejected membership in a referendum . The Ostpolitik and
30394-414: The tonemic varieties of Slovene, the ambiguity is even greater: ⟨e⟩ in a final syllable can stand for any of /éː/ /èː/ /ɛ́ː/ /ɛ̀ː/ /ɛ/ /ə/ (although /ɛ̀ː/ is rare; and Slovene, except in some dialects, does not distinguished tonemic accentuation). The reader is expected to gather the interpretation of the word from the context, as in these examples: To compensate for the shortcomings of
30576-485: The union for foreign affairs and security policy (presently Kaja Kallas ) also takes part in its meetings. Described by some as the union's "supreme political leadership", it is actively involved in the negotiation of treaty changes and defines the EU's policy agenda and strategies. Its leadership role involves solving disputes between member states and the institutions, and to resolving any political crises or disagreements over controversial issues and policies. It acts as
30758-406: The union for foreign affairs and security policy . In 2012, the EU received the Nobel Peace Prize for having "contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy, and human rights in Europe". In 2013, Croatia became the 28th EU member. From the beginning of the 2010s, the cohesion of the European Union has been tested by several issues, including a debt crisis in some of
30940-420: The use of Spanish regional languages in an EU institution for the first time in a meeting on that day, with interpretation provided by European Commission interpreters. On 3 July 2006, the European Parliament's Bureau approved a proposal by the Spanish State to allow citizens to address the European Parliament in Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician, two months after its initial rejection. On 30 November 2006,
31122-414: The younger generations of Slovene authors and intellectuals; among the most fierce opponents of an excessive Serbo-Croatian influence on Slovene were the intellectuals associated with the leftist journal Sodobnost , as well as some younger Catholic activists and authors. After 1945, numerous Serbo-Croatian words that had been used in the previous decades were dropped. The result was that a Slovene text from
31304-507: Was an official procedural language of the European Court of Justice . It was also possible to correspond in written Irish with the EU Institutions. However, despite being the first official language of Ireland and having been accorded minority-language status in the Northern Ireland region of the United Kingdom, then an EU member state, Irish was not made an official working language of the EU until 1 January 2007. On that date an EU Council Regulation making Irish an official working language of
31486-416: Was applied in many spheres of public life in Slovenia. For example, at the post offices, railways and in administrative offices, Serbo-Croatian was used alongside Slovene. However, state employees were expected to be able to speak Slovene in Slovenia. During the same time, western Slovenia (the Slovenian Littoral and the western districts of Inner Carniola ) was under Italian administration and subjected to
31668-459: Was commonly used in almost all areas of public life. One important exception was the Yugoslav army , where Serbo-Croatian was used exclusively, even in Slovenia. National independence has further fortified the language: since 1991, when Slovenia gained independence, Slovene has been used as an official language in all areas of public life. In 2004 it became one of the official languages of the European Union upon Slovenia's admission. Nonetheless,
31850-432: Was formally established when the Maastricht Treaty —whose main architects were Horst Köhler , Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand —came into force on 1 November 1993. The treaty also gave the name European Community to the EEC, even if it was referred to as such before the treaty. With further enlargement planned to include the former communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as Cyprus and Malta ,
32032-412: Was in turn reformed in 1961 into the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and its membership was extended to states outside of Europe, the United States and Canada. During the 1960s, tensions began to show, with France seeking to limit supranational power. Nevertheless, in 1965 an agreement was reached, and on 1 July 1967 the Merger Treaty created a single set of institutions for
32214-434: Was made public that Cyprus has asked to make Turkish an official EU language, in a “gesture” that could help reunification and improve EU–Turkey relations. Already in 2004, it was planned that Turkish would become an official language if Cyprus reunited. Turkish is also a recognized minority language in two EU member countries ( Greece and Romania ). In September 2010, Luxembourg's foreign minister Jean Asselborn declined
32396-418: Was spent on transport , building and the environment, €16bn on education and research , €13bn on welfare, €20bn on foreign and defence policy, €2bn in finance , €2bn in energy , €1.5bn in communications, and €13bn in administration. In November 2020, two members of the union, Hungary and Poland, blocked approval to the EU's budget at a meeting in the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper), citing
32578-401: Was the Schuman Declaration on 9 May 1950 (the day after the fifth Victory in Europe Day ) and the decision by six nations (France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, West Germany and Italy) to follow Schuman and draft the Treaty of Paris . This treaty was created in 1952 the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which was built on the International Authority for the Ruhr , installed by
32760-434: Was the dialect used in the 16th century by Primož Trubar for his writings, while he also used Slovene as spoken in Ljubljana, since he lived in the city for more than 20 years. It was the speech of Ljubljana that Trubar took as a foundation of what later became standard Slovene, with small addition of his native speech, that is Lower Carniolan dialect . Trubar's choice was later adopted also by other Protestant writers in
32942-399: Was the language of the elite, and Slovene was the language of the common people. During this period, German had a strong influence on Slovene, and many Germanisms are preserved in contemporary colloquial Slovene. Many Slovene scientists before the 1920s also wrote in foreign languages, mostly German, which was the lingua franca of science throughout Central Europe at the time. During
33124-467: Was to include the also proposed European Defence Community , an alternative to West Germany joining NATO which was established in 1949 under the Truman Doctrine . In 1954 the Modified Brussels Treaty transformed the Western Union into the Western European Union (WEU). West Germany eventually joined both the WEU and NATO in 1955, prompting the Soviet Union to form the Warsaw Pact in 1955 as an institutional framework for its military domination in
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