[pembrook]

And this kind of attitude is why Europe’s future prospects don’t look great.

Based on the demographics, most European countries are going to have to start importing young people (immigrants) if they want to keep their social welfare systems up for the next generation. It’s a well known fact that first generation immigrants often have the highest rates of entrepreneurship.

Yet, unlike the US, which was created around the idea of being a nation of immigrants, Europe does a really bad job of integrating people (not unique to Europe, it’s really the default state of humans).

English is the lingua franca of Europe. To make it hard for the people most likely to start a business (immigrants) to do so, is astonishingly short sighted. Where do you think the tax money that pays for the salaries of the 5 million German government workers rubber stamping all these documents comes from?

[q-big]

> Europe does a really bad job of integrating people (not unique to Europe, it’s really the default state of humans).

> English is the lingua franca of Europe.

These two sentences contradict each other: Integrating people implies that these people better learn and speak the native language of the country that they are in instead of English (in the EU of course except for Ireland and Malta, the only two EU countries where English is an (but not the only and first) official language).

[ido]

I live in Germany and have lived in Austria before (I lived in the German speaking countries since 2005). I have 2 native born Berliner children who speak German as their mother tongue. I speak German just fine for my day to day interactions but legalese German for corporate use with the government isn’t the same as everyday German (I also run a company here).

I manage anyway, but im sure this unnecessary friction is one of the factors in reducing entrepreneurship in Germany (my native tongue isn’t English but like everyone these days I learned English very early in life and still speak it better than German).

Ultimately it would be better for Germany to reduce friction for economic activity as much as possible. As others said you can register a company in Estonia without being fluent in Estonian. There is nothing inherently different about German or Germany except that they don’t care as much as Estonia does to encourage (or at least not discourage) entrepreneurship.

In general I wish “old Europe” would have been subjected to the same requirement for reform and modernization as the former communist countries were as a condition when they joined the EU. And generally for some Germans to drop the attitude that they’re better than Eastern Europeans - nobody is suggesting this with malicious intent, it’s meant to make things better for everyone in Germany - including Germans themselves.

[lynx23]

There isn't even a english speaking country in the EU anymore, and you say english is the defacto langauge of Europe? Seriously? If someone comes to a foreign country, they better start learning the language there, or they will have a hard time integrating. I see this on a daily basis. Language barriers are the biggest issues. We have people from foreign countries working in restaurants now, and somehow the customer is now supposed to speak their language if they want to talk about the order? The future is sign language I suppose.

No, it is not as simple as you seem to put it. Egnlish is not german, period. If someone wants to prosper in germany, they better learn german.

[q-big]

> There isn't even a english speaking country in the EU anymore

Ireland and Malta have English as one of the official languages, and for Ireland English is in practice even the more important one of the official languages.

But that's it.

[pembrook]

> There isn't even a english speaking country in the EU anymore, and you say english is the defacto langauge of Europe?

Hrmmm. What language do you think people who work in the EU government use when communicating with each other? Here's a hint, it's not Portuguese, Finnish, Dutch, French or Italian.

It's definitely not German (a few historical reasons for that...).

The term lingua franca means "bridge language." That's what English is in the EU.

> ...The future is sign language I suppose.

Or, Europeans can continue doing what they already do when conducting business or dealing with tourists, which is...speak English when dealing with people from other countries.

[type0]

Yeah, Euro English is a thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_English but doing bureaucracy in it on the local level isn't easy, mainly because legalese is often untranslatable

[lm28469]

> And this kind of attitude is why Europe’s future prospects don’t look great.

Only if Europe wants to be some culturless "money above all" USA style conglomerate