**4. Conclusions**

This paper has dealt with several aspects and dimensions of bilingualism and multilingualism with a focus on Europe. It has examined political circumstances that lead to whole communities and even countries needing to use several languages besides the official ones. A country almost never uses only one language, as we may expect. Circumstances such as conquests and migrations lead to different communities living together. The use of English as a lingua franca will remain despite fears related to the event of Brexit. Multilingualism in Europe is, however, another reality. The social mobility leads to a need of multilingualism. Once we learn at least another language, we could sympathize with other people and cultures. At the same time, identity issues could arise, as national belonging goes hand in hand with using a certain language, a majority language. Switching within various countries and communities can lead to the experience of culture shock. Despite these issues, migration will continue, as will learning other languages, as it has become a matter of survival and better living conditions. The need for communication and cohesion of groups of various cultures has led to today's promotion of multilingualism. There is, obviously, a contradiction, since cohesion of a nation has been created throughout history not through multilingualism and through different cultures living together, but through a majority language and one single culture, with its products.

The teaching and studying of foreign language, a domain belonging to philology has, apparently, no relation to politics. Yet, perhaps not so surprisingly, we notice how much philology and politics are related, as politics create the rules for teaching and studying at all levels, including university.

The research regarding the bilingualism and multilingualism is encouraged by EU. It is a topic that is currently discussed and that will be analyzed in the future as well. As multilingualism is a contemporary issue, it will constantly raise problems and academic research will attempt to analyze them and provide solutions.
