THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN EUROPE

The English language in Europe, as a native language, is mainly spoken in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Outside of these countries, it has a special status in Jersey and Guernsey (two of the three Crown Dependencies), in Gibraltar (one of the British overseas territories), Malta and Cyprus (two former British colonies). In other parts of Europe, English is spoken mainly by those who have learned it as a second language, but also, to a lesser extent, natively by expatriates from the English speaking world.
The English language is the official language of Gibraltar and one of the official languages of Wales, Republic of Ireland, Malta, Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man and the European Union.
13% of EU citizens speak English as their native language. Another 38% of EU citizens state that they have sufficient skills in English to have a conversation.

English is a lingua franca in parts of Western and Northern Europe. In the EU25, working knowledge of English as a foreign language is clearly leading at 38%, followed by German and French (at 14% each), Russian and Spanish (at 6% each), and Italian (3%). Working knowledge of English is particularly high in Scandinavia (Denmark 86%, Sweden 89%) and the Netherlands (87%). In Eastern and Southern Europe, working knowledge of English is lower, around 20-29%. On average, 38% of citizens of the European Union (excluding the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland) stated that they have sufficient knowledge of English to have a conversation.