The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), sitting as a Grand Chamber, issued a judgment on Wednesday 7 September in which it concluded that the obligation to provide higher education programmes exclusively in the official language of the Member State concerned may be consistent with the freedom of establishment (Case C-391/20).
The CJEU had been asked by the Latvian Constitutional Court, before which 20 members of the national parliament challenged the constitutionality of this law, which provides that all higher education establishments - both public and private - must offer courses only in Latvian. This law, the CJEU points out, includes several derogations, notably for European and international cooperation, the study of foreign languages and joint teaching programmes.
Specifically, the CJEU recognises that this law could make it less attractive for foreign nationals to establish themselves in Latvia and that this could, therefore, constitute a restriction on the freedom of establishment. Nevertheless, the Court points out, the objective of “promoting and encouraging the use of one of the official languages of a Member State must be regarded as being a legitimate objective which, in principle, justifies a restriction on the freedom of establishment”.
Furthermore, the Court also considers that the derogations granted to two Latvian institutions governed by special laws allowing them to provide courses in other languages do not undermine the objective of the law and its coherence, given their limited scope. These exceptions, the Court ruled, “forms part of a special kind of international university cooperation”.
See the CJEU judgment: https://aeur.eu/f/2zn (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)