Miguel Gonçalves   

Abstract

Although not a totally new issue, and not even a recent one, the debate about linguistic and cultural diversity has entered into the european agenda, mainly in the beginning of the XXI century. In fact, with the passing of the years and successive enlargements, the European Union (EU) has increased in citizens and new languages in such a way that, if language management was already a priority demanding an urgent solution by the EU, the two recent enlargements, which brought ten new national languages, turned it into a definitely unavoidable issue. With such a linguistic labyrinth, several voices were raised in defence of a neutral language, the Esperanto, and others of English. However, it is possible to be bilingual, but not an apatrid of language, seeking for asylum in a protecting language. The linguistic politics is a delicate subject that touches two very sensible areas: identity and emotions. And in such a way that it is easier to reach an agreement on single currency than on linguistic options.