official languages

An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in the countries, states, and other territories. It is typically the language used in a nation's legislative bodies, though the law in many nations requires that government documents be produced in other languages as well. Official status can also be used to give a language (often indigenous) legal status, even if that language is not widely spoken.
See more at Wikipedia.org...

From 1 May 2004 there are 20 official languages in the European Union: Czech, Danish, German, Estonian, Greek, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Maltese, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Slovenian, Slovak, Finnish and Swedish. EU legislation is published in all the official languages, and you may use any of these languages to correspond with the EU institutions. In addition, of course, there are many other languages spoken in Europe, and this diversity of national and regional languages is something Europeans cherish. It is part of their rich cultural heritage. The European Commission runs programmes to promote language learning and linguistic diversity..