American politicians like to concoct silly ways to waste money and misallocate resources. But European lawmakers always seem to out-do them — perhaps because the Europeans have several centuries of additional experience with government.

A good example is a European Commission-led effort to promote multilingualism. The more substantive point is that the bureaucrats in Brussels are foolishly trying to pretend that English is not the language of international business. But the most amusing part of the EU Observer story is reading that the European Commission has a commissioner for multilingualism:

Europeans should learn more foreign languages and not think that a “lingua franca” — one language used internationally — is enough, EU commissioner for multilingualism Leonard Orban said on Wednesday.

What’s next, a commissioner for watching paint dry? A commissioner for shoelace regulation?