Well, I have no objection on english being the de-facto lingua franca. But my position on english being the only official language is certainly not as simple. And the same is true for german, french or any of the other official languages of the EU - neither of them are or should be the only official language in such a multilingual construct as the EU. So I share the ambassadors rejection of the notion to only use english and I do not regard that as pettiness harmful to the EU. Sure, translation costs money, but it also makes records more accessible to the citizens, and I regard that as a good thing.