There were many lingua francas of which French was supposedly the first global lingua franca. That changed and it became English (from what I understand). We will probably see another language become the lingua franca, so my question is: should it be English? Are there better candidates out there? Why / why not?
The point is having a common language and thus economic and cultural advantages. English is a secondary language for most people. In the US, it’s probably replaced with Spanish.
With Arabic, you have many more primary language speakers. Thanks to immigration, the transition to Arabic can be made easy. Then it’s possible to sell products in one packaging from Portugal to India.
I am not arguing that this should happen. It’s just an opportunity that is not obvious because Arabic is not a traditional European language. Though I would assume that there are now more Arabic than Basque speakers.
Again, English would make so much more sense as a common language than Arabic. There are more English speakers in Egypt alone than there are Arabic speakers in the whole EU.