“While Europeans are willing to merge their currencies in the euro and concede other sovereign powers to Brussels, they are not willing to give up their language,” Graham Bowley reports today in an article for the International Herald Tribune. Recent attempts made by the European Union to downsize the number of “working” languages at official conferences to three (English, French, and German) have resulted in threats of revolt by Italian and Spanish governments. Apparently, language is more fundamental to the identity of a nation and its people than the big boys had anticipated.

Italian and Spanish are two of the languages which the European Commission recently dropped from use at multilingual news conferences for reasons of “efficiency” as well as a “lack of translation resources.”  Bowley notes that “speeches often have to be repeated two or three times, press releases are issued in triplicate and earphones are a necessary accessory in meetings and conferences.”

The absence of their national language at multinational conferences reflects a concern on the part of smaller countries that they may be “losing out” to the dominant nations of the European Union: Britain, Germany and France. The recent inclusion of German as an official “working” language at these conferences may have been the catalyst for action. As Enrico Brivio, correspondent for Il Sole 24 Ore, explained:

Fraoise Le Bail, spokesman for current president of the European Commission Jo Manuel Barroso, stated, in an attempt to pacify the angered parties:

While diversity may complicate conferences, life is rarely simple or efficient. Barroso’s intent to resolve the issue is an admirable one. It suggests aims of a new Europe which attempts to match ideals of unity and diversity with both an acknowledgment of social and political realities, and a wisdom which prioritizes communication over offense and misunderstanding. The results of communication and understanding may be complex, but they’re worth it.