BBC gets rebuffed by Guido Westerwelle when asking question in English: "...es ist Deutschland hier."

Here's a video of the BBC asking a question of the apparently upcoming foreign minister Guido Westerwelle in English but getting rebuffed because "es ist Deutschland hier":



An article here in German also recounts something similar but notably different a few years ago: former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was in the Czech Republic when he received a question in English, and responded that "here in the Czech Republic people speak Czech", but to his surprise the British reporter then repeated the question in Czech, whereupon he answered it in German.

Here's an article in English on the event too.

Anyway, this is why a common and neutral tongue for Europe is needed. Take a look here how Latin has been able to act as a bridge over linguistic disputes.