Estimated percentage of EU population speaking a foreign language

The Council of Europe’s Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, ratified by 17 EU Member States, aims to protect European regional and minority languages. Some 128 European languages feature in the Unesco World Atlas of Languages in Danger due to a declining native speaker population. Languages with huge populations of native and foreign speakers, English being the leading example, exert pressure on ‘smaller languages’ and weaken their status; yet, the majority of EU citizens believe that all languages should be treated equally, which means that films should be subtitled and citizens’ language skills should be a policy priority.