A nine-language Slovenian is the newly elected EU Parliament's top polyglot. Swedes are mostly content with English.
Slovenian former TV journalist Irena Joveva speaks, apart from her native language, also English, Bulgarian, Spanish, German, Croatian, Macedonian, Bosnian, and Serbian – at least according to her own statement.
Thus, Joveva is clearly the best in the EU Parliament, based on the language skills that the members themselves have reported at the start of the mandate period.
Among the Swedes, Charlie Weimers (SD) is the most linguistically skilled with five languages: Swedish, English, German, French, and Danish. All the other 20 Swedes also speak Swedish and English. Four, apart from Weimers, also speak French, while two others also master German and Danish.
Notably, ten Finns and five Danes claim to speak Swedish – just like German Svenja Hahn, Estonian Jaak Madison, and French Emma Fourreau. The latter, newly elected for the Left Party LFI, is also a Swedish citizen, with a Swedish mother and French father.
Oddly enough, no Swedes, Danes, or Finns claim to be able to speak Norwegian – a language that only two German left-wing members, Carola Rackete and Thomas Geisel, report being able to master.
Wiktor Nummelin/TT
Facts: Swedes' language skills in the EU
TTTT
Here are the languages that the Swedish members of the EU Parliament claim to master, apart from Swedish and English:
French: Hanna Gedin (V), Karin Karlsbro (L), Jessica Polfjärd (M), Jörgen Warborn (M), and Charlie Weimers (SD)
Danish: Gedin, Warborn, and Weimers
German: Pär Holmgren (MP), Emma Wiesner (C), and Weimers
Albanian: Adnan Dibrani (S) and Arba Kokalari (M)
Arabic: Abir Al-Sahlani (C)
Italian: Isabella Lövin (MP)
Of the 719 members who reported their skills, 64 are monolingual, while all but 75 claim to speak English. The most common non-EU language is Russian, spoken by 56 members, while only four speak Ukrainian and two Chinese.
Source: EU Parliament
