EU court rules universities can be forced on language issue

The European Union’s highest court ruled on Wednesday 7 September that member states can require universities to only teach in their national language, writes Molly Quell for Courthouse News Service.

A group of Latvian politicians had been fighting the requirement that university courses only be taught in the Latvian language, but the European Court of Justice found that such requirements do not violate EU law, provided they allow for some exceptions.

The Luxembourg-based court was persuaded that a 1995 Latvian law requiring higher education institutions to “promote and develop … the official language” did not fall afoul of the bloc’s free trade regulations. A 2018 update to the legislation went even further, mandating that all courses in post-secondary school be taught in Latvian.
Full report on the Courthouse News Service site