Fancy moving to Germany sometime soon? Well, for English speakers, it might get just that little bit easier. Some members of the German government have suggested that the country should make English one of the official languages of its the public sector.
A policy paper from the Free Democrats, a political party with 92 seats in Germany’s federal parliament, has said that introducing English would ‘make administrative procedures easier’, thereby attracting more foreign talent and better establishing Germany as a destination for immigrants.
It should be noted that the Free Democrats are definitely not suggesting that English should replace German in public-sector jobs. The paper instead proposes a two-language system that would simply make life easier for immigrants in the public sector.
The proposal isn’t just aimed at native English speakers but anyone who’s learnt the language. It follows the war in Ukraine and the arrival of nearly 870,000 Ukrainian refugees in Germany.
Which is all pretty great, right? Making a country more welcoming and accessible for immigrants can only be a good thing. On the other hand, it’s probably not that great for trying to get Brits, who are notoriously non-multilingual, to learn a new language.
If you’d like to find out more, you can read the Free Democrats’ policy announcement here.
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