Estonia is a place for independent minds
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(I'm not a native speaker and I've never nor do I currently live in an English speaking country, I just think this is the best and most practical way to start decreasing fragmentation in the EU market).
I don't see it happening officially, but this is more and more becoming the case de-facto isn't it? Especially anytime things are done cross-border, English is the default language for a lot of situations, whether business or government or education. I was at a scientific meeting at the European Commission last year, for example, and not a single piece of written information, or spoken talk, was given in a language besides English, and as far as I can tell nobody even considered that a question. Even seems increasingly true in France, which has been politically one of the strongest opponents of de-facto English. French politicians still give their talks at the EU in French on principle, but French companies use a lot of English when doing business with other countries.
Sweden pretty well leads Europe when it comes to highest adoption of English as a second language. I've always thought that was a valuable asset for them as a nation when it comes to competing in global tech and business generally. Being able to build an Internet company in Sweden and have no language barrier (and less of a cultural understanding barrier as well) to then go and push into the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand markets ($27 trillion in economy via one primary language, twice the size of China's economy). In terms of adoption you also get the Netherlands at over 90%, the Phillipines at over 90%, Denmark at 86%, Israel at 85%. Another two trillion dollars in economy that has English in fluent-level standard use. In total you get half the global economy with English.
Smaller countries that speak languages like Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic etc just don't have the network effect so they also learn English.
Then people in the larger countries like France and Germany tend to want to converse with the most people. The UK is large, and all the smaller countries have ESL speakers, so they learn it to, and so on and so forth.
Weirdly despite a lot of global speakers I didn't meet many Spanish speakers in Europe (outside Spain).
(Though it is funny to have someone chastise you for only speaking English then blank out when you start speaking Spanish back at them.)
Easy for me to say when I'm already fluent in it, but one of the most novel, equalizing experiences of travel is being in a new place and not having the crutch of your native language.
Of course, also easy for me to say when none of the downsides of EU fragmentation affect me.
I don't know, but I'd rather prefer French or German to become the lingua franca of the EU. Why?
Because those two languages are spoken by a large amount of population (actually German is close to 100M speakers, that's close to 1/4 of the whole population. French has fewer speakers, but is probably more studied in Europe than German.
Also, those two nations, in their own unique way, are at the very core and center of the EU. Both believe in it, both want it to keep going, thriving.
Call me crazy - but I'd even prefer Esperanto being used as the official European language as compared to English. At least the EU would not be giving an "easy" advantage to American and British citizens, just by the fact of being native speakers.
It just wouldn't be fair to have European kids and adults have to learn a minority language while Americans or Brits would just get it for free.
No one gets extra credit for tying their hand behind their back (shunning the English language, in this case) in a globalized world.
> It just wouldn't be fair to have European kids and adults have to learn a minority language while Americans or Brits would just get it for free.
Life isn't fair.
Before English became lingua franca, French used to be it. Another language can become in the future. A globalized world is something I love - yet the world seems to be going in the opposite direction these days.
French & German as the core EU languages would be a great step forwards towards truly making EU independent of American & British influences.
I lived in Turkey for two years, spoke at a conversation level fairly well, but once the other person realized I wasn't Turkish (it wasn't apparent) they wanted to practice their English. I went to Ukraine in December, spent 3 months learning Russian (I was visiting a Russian speaking area), and once they learned I was American (much sooner than Turkey), they wanted to practice their English. The only two counties that let me practice were France and Italy, with the Italians being the most patient in our conversations.
As an American, we want to learn new languages but no one let us practice.
Most people in Ukraine don't even have a way to practice English with native English speakers at all.
So perhaps a bit more practice upfront would be a good idea :)
I understand others wanting to practice with a native English speaker, and them getting the chance was probably more beneficial than me speaking Russian. Though the stereotype of Americans not attempting to learn a 2nd language gives me a slight annoyance, though nothing I lose much sleep over :)
The only language I could not grasp when traveling was Nepalese. Though all Asian languages based on tones has given me trouble.
My opinions as well. That's what we're here for!
While it's "only" spoken natively by 40M+ people in the EU, it is spoken globally by more than 1B people. It's, arguably, easier to learn than French and definitely German. Very easy to learn for Italians, Portuguese and Romanians. And it's widely studied in most places. It would also be more "neutral" than picking either French or German.
(edited: minor corrections)
I agree that English would be a brilliant choice for EE but I suspect the Russian-speaking minority would be perturbed.
That might change. The presence of England, which can't choose anything but English, means Ireland can costlessly designate Irish for reasons of ethnic pride. But almost nobody in Ireland can speak it -- without a ringer to choose English, Ireland could be forced into designating that instead.
That's a pretty niche area of interest, if you're not Estonian.
No and no, you’ll get an exit from the EU before you can convince people there that the language spoke at home by only 5m EU citizens after Brexit should be an official language.
I've heard of Estonian e-residency before, but have never met anyone who actually took advantage of it. I'd be interested to know people's personal experiences with the program.
I'd love to see them consider granting visas for digital nomads. Most people don't know that it's technically illegal to work on a tourist visa (even remotely).
It would be really cool to have a legal way to draw a paycheck from one's home country while exploring the EU.
Estonia would benefit from such an arrangement since your tax residency would be Estonian (and thus you'd pay taxes on the salary you draw to the Estonian government) - all without taking away any jobs from EU citizens, and even creating a few. (Ex: paying for hotels/apts, restaurants, evenings out etc)
I wish more companies supported the PKI that comes with the E-ID and is similar to the PKI that comes with a German ID card. Right now you can only use it to communicate with a few entities, all listed on the e-residency web site.
It's also a bit of a pain that the ID card is the size of a full format SIM card (1FF -- size of a credit card). I hardly use a physical wallet any more and if I could use the identity online via Touch ID or something like that for certain transactions I believe it could be even more useful.
But government is working hard to make it work.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190416183148/https://estonia.e...
Estonia also has Startup Visa, which helps non-EU founders to start their startup in Estonia (https://www.startupestonia.ee/visa).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see anything particularly bad about this policy. Considering the fact that the Baltic countries were under Russian occupation for a while, I don't have much of a problem with them making those Russians who decide to stay learn the language. This is coming from an ethnic Russian whose family used to live in Latvia, and who now resides in Canada - learning English was also required here since I wanted to obtain Canadian citizenship.
Is it required for people that were born in Canada? And is it English or French? Or both?
- It did not try to throw them out like many countries have done in the past.
- It did not simply keep them around as jus sanguinis countries do. I've known a person whose PARENTS were born in Switzerland and she doesn't have a citizenship.
So kindly let's all ease off on indignation before learning at least a tiny bit about a) Estonian history and b) how citizenship laws very in all our oh-so-advanced mature Western democracies.
Yes, ex-colonists are usually not personally guilty of the transgressions of their original state.
>our failure to make a distinction between a state, its ethnic composition and the individuals residing there just kinda embarassingly highlights the ethno-nationalist ideology underlying these laws.
Sorry, the "ethno-nationalist ideology" canard doesn't pass muster. There's absolutely no ethnic component to this. Descendants of ethnic Russians who lived in Estonia prior to 1940 (or which there were a reasonable number) were given Estonian citizenship in 1991 like any other Estonians who descend from those living in Estonia prior to 1940. The law is based on residency during occupation, not ethnic origin.
There is a procedure to obtain full citizenship, which includes a basic test of Estonian language. If you lived all your life in Estonia, the test should be pretty easy. Personally, I would wave it in many cases.
Many EU countries have much more difficult procedures to gain citizenship.
It is better to be stateless citizen than Estonian or Russian.
It gives privileges in both countries.
Double citizenship are not allowed in Estonia.
Many grey passport holders are also offered Russian citizenship (with which they could still legally live in Estonia), but they refuse it.
This citizenship topic is not as black and white as one usually reads.
You do recognize that the Russians invaded their land, killed their people, and occupied their houses, right? If that is granted, surely you recognize the reluctance to endow those same people citizenship.
Sad story really, however Estonia has nothing to do with this, Baltics are doing all they can to help them - they just refuse the help.
[1] Source: My wife's estonian grandparents
Older generations are a bit more problematic in this regard. I would say there's a general hate towards older Russians that still can't speak Estonian, even from younger generations.
However, I would say Russians are generally disadvantaged in Estonia and that's a big source of issues. In my childhood, younger Russians tended to be poorer and therefore were more involved in various criminal activities. Most of my friends and I were afraid of Russians in our area, as they liked to pick fights and generally mess with you.