The profile of multilingualism in the European Union (EU) and the promotion of

Abstract

The present article contains a general view of the profile of multilingualism in the European Union (EU) based on information collected from documents published by the Council of Europe, especially the Eurobarómetro Nº 243 (European Comission, 2006a). Nowadays, the EU is composed of 27 countries and deals with a wide variety of social, political, and educational issues, which affect directly the daily lives of over 450 million Europeans, who compose a big mosaic of cultural and linguistic identities. Amongst the issues which affect such modern European society, this article reflects on the relationship Europeans have with the process of learning of Lenguas Añadidas a la Propia (LAP), as well as their feeling towards the configuration of a “European Identity”. Keywords: Multilingualism in the European Union (EU). Teaching and learning of languages in the European Union. European Identity. Plurilingualism.