Not just Europe, but the world as a whole has reached an unprecedented level of cross border communication, even connecting whole continents and people are becoming more mobile by the year. As a result, tourism has surged and the world’s population is becoming more mobile as a whole, with people not just travelling somewhere for a short period of time, but settling down for a couple of years, before moving to the next country. An example of which are students who, in recent years, start considering studying in countries other than their own more frequently.
All of this has propelled the need for a common language to serve as a means of communication, a role for which English appears to be the most prominent and promising contender at the moment. This is especially true for Europe.