large number of official languages (currently 23) hinders communication and imposes substantial financial and legal costs … official languages in the EU. Using the results of a 2005 Eurobarometer survey of languages in the EU 27, we first derive the … sets of languages that minimize aggregate linguistic disenfranchisement of the Union’s citizens for any given number of …

EU languages has grown from 11 to 20. Currently, the EU extends equal treatment to all member countries’ official … languages by providing translations for documents and interpreting services for meetings and sessions of the European Parliament …. This, however, is costly, especially when recognizing that many Europeans speak one of the procedural languages of the EU …