Since 2001 the European Day of Languages has been held every year on 26 September to celebrate Europe's linguistic diversity and to encourage people to learn more languages. It also provided Martínez with a good reason to chat to our Facebook fans about the benefits and challenges of multilingualism. The Parliament uses all of the EU's official 23 languages, which is why it set up highly efficient interpreting, translation and legal text verification services.

The Spanish Social-Democrat answered in English, French, Spanish and German, but was disappointed there were no questions in other languages.

Several people asked whether it would be better to have just one official language for the EU, to which Martínez responded: "I don't agree with having one common official language for all EU citizens, for the very simple reason that all our citizens do not know and do not speak one single language. Therefore I strongly believe that we must operate with all the languages which are common to a group of citizens and use all the means at our disposal to make it possible for them to communicate in their own language." He also said: "The fact that we have many different languages should not to be seen as a problem, but it has to be seen as a great privilege."

The vice president dictated his answers in order to reply to as many questions as possible and managed to fire off an impressive 1,200 words in just over 45 minutes.

Martínez also extolled the benefits of language learning, including for young people. He said speaking several languages would make it easier to find work and move to different places. "That is why a lot needs to be done, like the Erasmus programme," he added.