A second panel will focus on the economic implications involved by different language policy scenarios on the European level. The discussion will raise the question whether the unequal distribution of the costs entailed by the choice of a language regime based on English as a lingua franca can be mitigated, in order to reconcile the principles of efficiency and fairness, or whether a multilingual language regime is more apt to meet this challenge.

Given the strong linguistic interdependencies between Europe and the rest of the world, the future of multilingualism in the EU is increasingly determined by decisions and changes taking place outside its borders. Putting the EU language regime in perspective with the larger macro-level dynamics characterizing the world language system, contributions will seek to assess the potential consequences of recent or future foreign policy decisions (such as the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement TAFTA) on existing multilingualism policies in Europe.

Contributions will more largely seek to investigate to what extent different types of financial incentives or compensations may be a feasible policy solutions allowing the promotion of individual multilingualism and the implementation of a multilingual language regime on the European level, despite the hyper-central position occupied by English on a global scale.