It's a recognised minority language in Germany, specifically in Schleswig-Holstein.

I take it that GPs point is that it makes just as little sense, to change the working language to danish, purely based on presidency.

There's no other country in the EU that speaks French, either. And by numbers, German should prevail.

Your first point is incorrect: Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Monaco [1]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/european_languages/languages/...

Switzerland and Monaco aren’t in the EU

Parts of Belgium. Just ~35% of Belgiums are French speakers. Most speak Dutch. Same for Switzerland, most Swiss speak German.

Flemish I think. Although it's pretty similar to Dutch.

Flemish is not a language, it's a dialect. The language is Dutch.

That's an opinion, not a fact, and one that depends on who you ask and where. If you go to the Flanders region people will certainly tell you they speak Flemish.

Language researchers can argue all they want about how languages should be grouped, but they sound different, they use different words, and people call them different things. It is simply incorrect to state that people in Belgium speak Dutch. Might as well just expand the group to include German and English (etc) and say they speak Germanic.

Fun fact, the Dutch call their language Nederlands and refer to German as Duits ("Dutch").

The language is Dutch, the collection of dialects spoken in the Flanders region is Flemish. If you're feeling charitable, you can refer to it as a language variant.

Here is the constitution of Belgium: https://www.senate.be/doc/const_nl.html Articles 2 and 3 define the Flemish (Vlaamse) community and region. Article 4 defines the language areas and specifically mentions Dutch (Nederlands), not Flemish.

See also: the Dutch Language Union (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Language_Union) being founded on a treaty between the Netherlands and Belgium.

For a language that's derived from Dutch but now its own proper language, try Afrikaans.

> If you go to the Flanders region people will certainly tell you they speak Flemish.

And they would be right. They do indeed speak the Flemish dialect.

> That's an opinion, not a fact, and one that depends on who you ask and where

I don't see how it is "an opinion" if Flemish literally adheres to "Standaardnederlands" (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standaardnederlands). Your analogy to German doesn't make any sense here. The Dutch language doesn't adhere to some "Germanic" standard language or anything, and barely has any grammar rules in common with German (even though the languages are very similar).

How could I forget Belgium. Damn!

There’s Belgium and Luxembourg, but sure…

Don't tell the Belgians.

Part of them agrees, probably...

Belgians agreeing ?