In 2022, one-quarter (25.3%) of working-age adults (defined here as people aged 25-64 years) in the EU reported that they did not know any foreign languages. A higher proportion (37.6%) reported that they knew 1 foreign language, while one-quarter (24.7%) knew 2 foreign languages, and less (12.3%) knew 3 or more.
For Latvia, only 5.0% of people say they have no foreign languages at all, 26.4% say they have one foreign language, 52.6% say they have two foreign languages and 16.0% say they have three or more foreign languages.
The extent of language ability differed considerably between EU countries, with Luxembourg emerging as the clear leader in most measures of linguistic flexibility.
In 18 EU countries, more than three-quarters of the adult working-age population knew at least 1 foreign language in 2022.
In 10 of these, at least 90% knew a foreign language: Slovenia (96.0%), Sweden (95.8%), Estonia (95.5%), Lithuania (95.3%), Latvia (95.0%), Luxembourg (94.5%), the Netherlands (92.9%), Finland (92.1%), Cyprus (91.9%) and Denmark (90.3%).
The share of the adult working-age population who knew 3 or more foreign languages peaked at 56.3% in Slovenia, followed by Luxembourg (54.1%), with the next highest shares in the Netherlands (40.2%) and Finland (38.1%).
By contrast, the figures for Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania were less than 4%.
"Some of the other EU countries with high levels of linguistic capabilities are characterised by their geographical and linguistic proximity. For example, it is relatively common for people from some of the Nordic, Baltic, and eastern EU countries to understand the languages of some of their neighbours," noted Eurostat.
"In Lithuania and Latvia (and Estonia to a lesser degree), the relatively high proportion of older people who speak at least 1 foreign language may reflect the fact that the older generations learnt Russian, whereas the younger generations learnt English," said Eurostat.
Some countries also have more than 1 official language: for example, there are 3 in Belgium (German, French and Dutch) and 2 in Finland (Finnish and Swedish), while minority languages exist in others. For example, in Slovenia the official language is Slovenian, with Italian and Hungarian considered to be co-official languages.
In the EU, over a quarter (27.6%) of working-age adults who knew at least 1 other language reported that their level in their strongest foreign language was proficient. Between 2007 and 2022 the proficiency share fell in 6 out of the 22 EU countries for which data are available; the largest reductions were recorded in Latvia and Slovakia.
By contrast, there was a relatively rapid increase in proficiency levels in Bulgaria, Finland and Cyprus.
In 2022, almost three-quarters (68.8%) of the population in Luxembourg claimed proficiency in their strongest foreign language. The only other EU countries with more than half of working-age adults claiming proficiency were Latvia (51.5%) and Sweden (51.0%).
