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Comment by octagonal | Hacker News Reader

It always bothers me when I see listings where Eurozone countries are seen as separate entities. We're not. Our economies and social structures are heavily interdependent on each other and that's only ever going to increase. Regarding Eurozone countries as completely separate states would be akin to thinking of California as a different country.

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Unfortunately we are not quite there yet. If we were a more cohesive union, there wouldn't be such a thing as a European debt crisis. We will have Eurobonds, automatic states bailouts, a fiscal union, etc.

It might take another 50 years, but we, eventually, will become a single union. This are interesting times

Don't forget the languages; these are a far bigger barrier than everyone seems to think. Most countries now have mandatory English in schools, but taught by teachers from the country itself. When the average Spanish young person with years of English in school starts speaking to me in English it takes several minutes before I actually recognize it is English. Let alone understand what he/she is on about. I found the same in France. If English is taught by people who cannot possibly pronounce it themselves and when movies are still dubbed (recently it was again decided that movies in Spain will remain dubbed for instance), it will not 'come together'.

Now I don't want to say we all have to speak English, but it's, economically, the logical language to go for (http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/reprints/weber/rep-weber.htm) and entire EU youth are watching US movies + US tv shows and thus US culture 24/7. I hear Spanish kids making translated jokes (from dubbing) from American shows. Economy wise it would make sense to just make the union speak something which can be used in international business. And then of course the things you speak off as well to make it 1 union.

Well it seems to be the logical choice, but the UK is currently backing out of the EU, so we would not have any native speakers. And while some countries (spain probably included) are reasonable blasé about adopting other languages, forget about the french doing that.

Well... not enough labour mobility without a common language and without labour mobility no optimal currency area. Somebody should really have thought this through...

There's no need for anybody speaking English natively. Even without, English is the natural common language of the EU. A nice example is Pan-European university student networks such as IAESTE, AEGEE and BEST. English is the common language inside these organisations. The members do not even think twice about it. This is the case despite the fact that AEGEE is a French acronym and BEST has no member universities in English speaking countries.

Similarly, virtually any company in Europe that has more than one accepted work floor language, has $NATIONAL_LANGUAGE and English. And any company where the work floor language is not the national language, it's English.

Really, this battle has long ago been won. Only some archaic government institutions like the EU itself pretend that languages other than English still make a chance at becoming the lingua franca of Europe. Whether or not the UK currently is in a Euro-mood does not influence this at all.

Oh, and you forgot about Ireland.

There's no dubbing north of Germany, and most Norwegians, Danes and Swedes talks a decent english, but there's still a strong "anti-EU" sentiment. I'm personally more of a fan of a Kalmar Union, but if we can't have that, I'd rather suffer the EU than have renewed distrust across borders.

I see you didn't say Finland; I noticed in Finland English is not very good. They have dubbing?

No dubbing in Finland. I don't think English in Finland is any worse than in aforementioned Scandinavian countries, considering that quality of teaching is equal if not better. Of course, if someone simply just doesn't bother learning the language in school, it's probably much harder to pick it up later on by Finns due to completely differing native language.

Finnish isn't an Indo-European language so learning English is a bigger step for Finns.

I lived in Finland for a year 10 years ago, and my experience is the exact opposite.

They have a funny accent though.

I have long supported that the EU should adopt english as an official second language (Kind of like India). Translation services alone account for 1% of EC's budget

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