Spain and Italy have won a legal battle on behalf of their citizens who speak just one language.
The case was a reaction to job adverts for EU positions which demanded English, French or German from candidates.
The adverts were published in December 2012 and said candidates must have a thorough knowledge of one of the EU’s official languages, in addition to a satisfactory command of English, French or German.
Italy filed a legal challenge, based on EU rules which hold that Europeans have the right to contact the EU and receive a reply in any of the official languages.
Italy argued the adverts were ‘discriminatory’ and Spain declared that a competitive advantage was handed to those who had one of the three languages as their mother tongue.
This week the EU’s General Court ruled in favour of the two countries, saying that the adverts did limit correspondence to the three languages.
Reducing choice to a small number of languages is discriminatory, the court said, citing previous cases at the European Court of Justice.
The ruling was announced on the same day as Eurostat data showed that 99.6 pupils in Spain under the age of 12 were studying a foreign language, making it one of the leading countries for foreign language learning. Of these, 99% were studying English.
Over the age of 12, 99.4% of students were taking English.
Ironically, yet another study revealed that about 35% of job adverts in Spain ask for candidates with two languages, with English being the most sought after.
