> Europe really needs to fix the funding issue and language fragmentation.
The language fragmentation certainly is an issue in the general workplace. But academia does use English as its lingua franca throughout most of the EU, though it might depend on the country. Certainly in places I've worked in academia - and yes, that has been in multiple countries in the EU - I've never had to utter a single word in something other than English in the workplace. But it is International English alright, which may be somewhat of a novelty to the native English speaker if they haven't been exposed.
> Even Amazon orders
That's wholly Amazon's problem. If I order something from BOL or Coolblue it arrives within 12-24 hours. Even small pop-and-mom webstores usually deliver within 1-2 business days. It's only Amazon that somehow manages to average more than a week (my last order at Amazon only arrived after 2 months. Guess why I no longer use their service).
> I've worked in academia - and yes, that has been in multiple countries in the EU - I've never had to utter a single word in something other than English in the workplace.
I have the same trajectory as you -- multiple countries in the EU, working in academia -- but different experiences for sure. Or at least a mixed bag.
Let me list them in order of how much English sufficed:
1. The Netherlands -- common knowledge is that their English is top notch and anecdotally it was the case as well, I also got by purely with English.
2. Germany -- their English is also good but I needed German in edge cases. One edge case was finding an apartment (not speaking German simply pushed you down the list of candidates, even with a full time job in academia). Another one were university rules and announcements; not every email was in English, but arguably easy to get by with modern translation tools.
3. Czechia & Poland -- English is good among the professors but the percentage of locals at the university level is so high that most internal meetings, announcements, local seminars take place in the local language. In my experience, non-faculty university staff (department secretaries, payroll, entrance security) usually strongly dislike speaking English or outright do not speak it at all.
---
I've omitted some more cases where local languages are required. If you live in a country, you will eventually interact with the healthcare sector, where the language experience will likely mimic the experience at the workplace (for the countries above, it would be in the same order for the healthcare sector).
Another case is government bureaucracy. For most of the EU countries I've been to, the official language of the country is their local language and only their local language. This means that government employees are not required to speak any other language other than the official one to you, plus you might be required to fill in forms and communicate in the official language if you want to talk to them.
In my experience, the helpful/good ones may try to communicate with you in English but if you need something from them or if the bureaucrat had a bad day, you better start talking in the official language.
> Another case is government bureaucracy. For most of the EU countries I've been to, the official language of the country is their local language and only their local language. This means that government employees are not required to speak any other language other than the official one to you, plus you might be required to fill in forms and communicate in the official language if you want to talk to them.
This is true, and something I have indeed experienced. However, this is likely true for _any_ country where English is not the official language, not just those in the EU. Besides, understanding bureaucratic lingo is not just a matter of pure linguistics. Governmental concepts rarely translate 1:1 to another nation, even those with the same official language. If you migrate to another country, part and parcel of the experience is that you _must_ contend with bureaucratic principles, rules and institutes with which you are not familiar. There is no escaping that.
That said, at least here in the Netherlands, there is certainly a movement to provide more and more governmental information in English as well. I'm not going to dox myself, but for example my muni's English website looks nigh-identical to the Dutch one.
The problem is social life and informal discussions. I France or Germany you cannot have a normal life without a fairly good knowledge of the language.
The language fragmentation certainly is an issue in the general workplace. But academia does use English as its lingua franca throughout most of the EU, though it might depend on the country. Certainly in places I've worked in academia - and yes, that has been in multiple countries in the EU - I've never had to utter a single word in something other than English in the workplace. But it is International English alright, which may be somewhat of a novelty to the native English speaker if they haven't been exposed.
> Even Amazon orders
That's wholly Amazon's problem. If I order something from BOL or Coolblue it arrives within 12-24 hours. Even small pop-and-mom webstores usually deliver within 1-2 business days. It's only Amazon that somehow manages to average more than a week (my last order at Amazon only arrived after 2 months. Guess why I no longer use their service).