The Brexit referendum thread: potential consequences for GB, EU and the Brits in CH

[amogles]

	Quote:	Medea Fleecestealer
	English is the only language that is used and understood by all 27 members of the EU. I doubt many Polish/Hungarian/Croatian/etc people speak French.

Maybe they speak Luxemburgish?

[Chuff]

Juncker needs to have an unfortunate incident of some form that forces him to retire from politics.

[amogles]

	Quote:	Chuff
	Juncker needs to have an unfortunate incident of some form that forces him to retire from politics.

Maybe he can change places with Prince Philip.

On second thoughts. No.

[Swisstree]

They just need to keep feeding Juncker alcohol and watch it all unravel..

[Jim2007]

	Quote:	Medea Fleecestealer
	English is the only language that is used and understood by all 27 members of the EU. I doubt many Polish/Hungarian/Croatian/etc people speak French.

But the thing is that once the U.K. exits there will be no legal requirement for the EU to provide documents and services in English! Neither Ireland nor Malta have selected English as their national language. I don't know about Malta, but the Irish Dept Of Foreign Affair has always used French.

There is of course a legal requirement to provide full services in Polish etc... so they will not need to learn French

What ever about Malta, it is hard to see how Irish citizens can get by with services only in Irish.

[McTAVGE]

Romansch for all!

[rainer_d]

IIRC, the most common language after English is now German (in the EU) - because a lot of Eastern European states teach that in school at an early age.

So, I'd say it's a classic case of "Be careful what you wish for".

[marton]

	Quote:	rainer_d
	IIRC, the most common language after English is now German (in the EU) - because a lot of Eastern European states teach that in school at an early age. So, I'd say it's a classic case of "Be careful what you wish for".

In Soviet times the Eastern European states all taught Russian in their schools so maybe that is the most common language

[Urs Max]

	Quote:	Jim2007
	But the thing is that once the U.K. exits there will be no legal requirement for the EU to provide documents and services in English! Neither Ireland nor Malta have selected English as their national language. I don't know about Malta, but the Irish Dept Of Foreign Affair has always used French.

That need not mean there won't be anymore documents in English. I guess it will be the same situation as in CH where many documents are available in English, including some laws - they just can't be used as legal base.

[rainer_d]

	Quote:	marton
	In Soviet times the Eastern European states all taught Russian in their schools so maybe that is the most common language

That was a long time ago.
I guess it pretty much stopped in 1990. That's almost 30 years now.

And because people weren't even supposed to travel to Russia and befriend the population there, it wasn't practiced much, if at all.

Getting rid of English in EU documents would be very, very foolish on a lot of levels.

[McTAVGE]

	Quote:	rainer_d
	That was a long time ago. I guess it pretty much stopped in 1990. That's almost 30 years now. And because people weren't even supposed to travel to Russia and befriend the population there, it wasn't practiced much, if at all. Getting rid of English in EU documents would be very, very foolish on a lot of levels.

People did not have to travel to Russia, the Russians came to "befriend" them!

[Jim2007]

	Quote:	Urs Max
	That need not mean there won't be anymore documents in English. I guess it will be the same situation as in CH where many documents are available in English, including some laws - they just can't be used as legal base.

I would expect that it will be added as some kind of stand alone option rather being attached to a country. Of course since all translators need to be EU citizens there is a jobs opportunity so perhaps Ireland or Malta will switch...

[Odile]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...1043665&type=3

[amogles]

	Quote:	rainer_d
	That was a long time ago. I guess it pretty much stopped in 1990. That's almost 30 years now. And because people weren't even supposed to travel to Russia and befriend the population there, it wasn't practiced much, if at all. Getting rid of English in EU documents would be very, very foolish on a lot of levels.

From what Ive heard from different people who grew up in that time, it was taught very badly and despite kids having to sit through infinite hours of it, very few of them reached any level of fluency.

In the meantime, many picked up basic English by listening to the radio.

[Jim2007]

It seems this is still going on:

President of Irish High Court to make ruling on Brexit

	Quote:
	A British barrister and a number of Green Party politicians in Britain and Northern Ireland have brought proceedings seeking to establish if Britain can halt Brexit after triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

It seems Mr Justice Peter Kelly will rule on whether the court has jurisdiction or not on the 31st of May.

[Odile]

Tragically spot on analysis: May and co drip drip preparing to blame the EU's intransigeance for what is about to unfurl- which is based on the mistakes of the past years to deal with debt, etc:

https://www.facebook.com/RTUKnews/vi...3614233928452/

[marton]

You could not make this stuff up!

	Quote:
	Britain has called in an international war negotiator, William Ury, to counter growing hostility between Brussels and London over Brexit. Ministers asked a leading US negotiator for help after he played a key role in ending the seemingly intractable 52 year-long war in Colombia, South America. On Saturday a spokesman for the Department for Exiting the European Union confirmed that officials had already held a meeting with Mr Ury.

Source

Good idea to pull in top people; but what sort of message does it give that we do not have the skills locally?

[fatmanfilms]

	Quote:	Jim2007
	But the thing is that once the U.K. exits there will be no legal requirement for the EU to provide documents and services in English! Neither Ireland nor Malta have selected English as their national language. I don't know about Malta, but the Irish Dept Of Foreign Affair has always used French. There is of course a legal requirement to provide full services in Polish etc... so they will not need to learn French What ever about Malta, it is hard to see how Irish citizens can get by with services only in Irish.

Virtually zero French understood in Malta, Italian would be the 3rd most spoken language.

[Jim2007]

	Quote:	fatmanfilms
	Virtually zero French understood in Malta, Italian would be the 3rd most spoken language.

And since Italian is still a state language they would not have a problem...

[Jim2007]

	Quote:	marton
	You could not make this stuff up! Source Good idea to pull in top people; but what sort of message does it give that we do not have the skills locally?

It just confirms how out of touch they are. The one thing they desperately need is a good understanding of the EU, the procedures and the laws so they can negotiate their way through it. An American blowing hot will not fix it for them.