The EU's stance on this is that every student should learn English as a lingua franca and also another language, ideally that of a neighbouring country. I agree that this is a good idea, even though I have my problems with English being dominant but that's another issue for another day.
Maybe Finland could compromise by offering a choice between Swedish, Norwegian and Russian?
In my German school experience English is mandatory, but then you usually get the choice between Latin and French, or Dutch or Russian depending on your region and the availability of teachers.






