[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.