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The process of European integration has produced a linguistic regime that is stable but paradoxical. The list of official languages regularly grows while, at an informal level, the European Union predominantly uses English. This discrepancy is not transitional. A European Babel is not being rationalized into a monolingual State. On the contrary: the EU promotes its diversity and pretends to reject English, which it considers as the language of both mercantile globalization and American cultural imperialism. English is both the common medium and the common enemy. Since the Union's ideal is peace among European nations, it cannot discriminate among the national languages. Thus, it necessarily has to use an informal third language. Since World English is the last language that the Union aims to protect, it is also the least contentious tongue. Official diversity and informal English reinforce each other.