Is that an essay topic? I would say that there was no "European Government" when colonial powers were expanding so I'm not sure how you'd answer that question. Surely though, one could argue that colonial powers benefited massively from having their languages used all over the world. English is the language of business so the UK has gotten a lot of benefits from it's colonial days.

Of course European countries gained from establishing colonies - they robbed them of resources and won trade opportunities.