Does translation support multilingualism in the EU? Promises and reality - the example of German

The translation services of the European Union (EU) are meant to guarantee that EU institutions can, and actually do, communicate with member states in these states' own official languages, as long as they have been bestowed the status of official EU languages (Council Regulation No 1, Articles 1-5). Though it is well-known among EU politicians that reality falls short of this objective, there is no serious discussion about this, let alone an attempt to bring reality in line with the Regulation. As the following study of the EU Commission's communication with the German national parliament (Bundestag) shows, actual practice does contrast sharply with the EU politicians' never-ending eulogy on multilingualism. Such eulogy instead seems to be part of an ideology which serves to calm down concerns from traditional competitors of English as an international language such as, in particular, speakers of French, German, Italian or Spanish, the status and function of whose languages suffer most from the present practice.