The promotion of German and French in the EU institutions was considered by Dr. Klaus Kinkel (German Federal Foreign Minister 1985-1995) and Jacques Delors (President of the EU Commission 1985-1995) as an important contribution to multilingualism in Europe. That was the beginning of an intensive language course programme, which initially under the name "DeutschLand - Sprachkurse in Deutschland" (German Country - Language Courses in Germany) and later as "Europanetzwerk Deutsch" (European German Network) still attracts a great deal of interest today.
Since 1994, the Federal Foreign Office has supported the promotion of German as a working and processing language in the EU institutions with this language course programme in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut. It was an important concern of the founding father and then Foreign Minister Dr Klaus Kinkel to strengthen the German language in the European context in this way.
