conventions evolving in a mix between Italian, Arabic and English. Between the 1870s and 1930s, Malta had three official languages, Italian, Maltese and English, but in 1934, English and Maltese were declared the sole official languages. The British associated Italian with the Benito Mussolini regime in Italy, which had made territorial claims on the islands, although the use of Italian by nationalists was more out of cultural affinities with Italy than any sympathy with Italian Fascism. With the outbreak of World War II, the Maltese lost their sense of fraternity with the Italian world, and there was a decline in Italian spoken in Malta. English remains an official language in Malta, but since independence in 1964, the country's cultural and commercial links with Italy have strengthened, owing to proximity. Italian television is widely received in Malta and is highly popular. Menorca Like Gibraltar, Menorca was ceded to Britain in the Treaty of Utrecht, although as it transpired this was to be a temporary dominion. Nevertheless, while under British Control Menorca become the Royal Navy's main Mediterranean base and English has been very widely spoken throughout Menorca ever since. Although not an official language, English tends to be used on much public signage for the benefit of tourists and expatriates, alongside Castilian Spanish and Menorcan Catalan. Other countries There are also pockets of native English speakers to be found throughout Europe, such as in southern Spain, France, Algarve in Portugal, as well as numerous US and British military bases in Germany. There are communities of native English speakers in some European cities outside the UK and Ireland, such as Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo, Paris, Prague, Rome, Stockholm, and Vienna. In Luxembourg, a trilingual country, there was a proposal in 2019 to make English an official language, but this ultimately failed to get the required minimum number of signatures to be discussed by the parliament. In 2021, a similar proposal was made, which failed to meet the 4500 minimum signatures. In 2020, two English-language courts opened in Stuttgart and Mannheim, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. According to a spokesperson of the Baden-Württemberg Judiciary, all judges in of the Stuttgart Commercial Court and the Mannheim Commercial Court will be able to conduct hearings in the English language. The courts have been created with the intent of settling international disputes, thus increasing the role of Germany in international commercial