In response to questions from several Member States concerning Spain’s request to grant Catalan, Basque and Galician the status of official languages of the European Union, Spain proposed, on Tuesday 19 September, a gradual integration starting with Catalan (see EUROPE 13251/26).
“Today we have set in motion the reform of Regulation 1/58 governing the EU’s language regime”, said the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares Bueno, after the ‘General Affairs’ Council discussion. He pointed out that the Spanish request was not a recent one, dating back about 20 years, with arrangements allowing the use of the three regional languages in communication between EU institutions and Spanish citizens having been agreed as early as 2005 (see EUROPE 8970/28).
According to the Minister, Spain is unique in that its Constitution officially recognises the three regional languages. These languages, he added, are now used in the national parliament and are “not a minority”, since around 10 million people speak Catalan (2.6 million speak Galician and 1.1 million speak Basque). And Mr Albares Bueno confirmed that his country was prepared to assume the costs associated with this request.
Granting Catalan official EU language status first would also help to facilitate internal discussions on the formation of a new government led by the Socialist Pedro Sánchez, who needs the political support of Catalan nationalists and Basque regionalists.
Underlining the fact that “no Member State has vetoed” the Spanish request, the Minister indicated that work would continue at a technical level in order to respond to those countries expressing “doubts” regarding the simultaneous granting of official language status to the three regional languages. However, he did not venture to put forward a timetable. In particular, it will be up to the ambassadors of the EU Member States (Coreper) to decide whether a legal opinion from the EU Council’s legal experts is necessary.
On their arrival at the ‘General Affairs’ Council, several Ministers and Secretaries of State were cautious on the language issue. According to Croatia’s Andreja Metelko-Zgombic, the Spanish proposal needs to be studied “very carefully” and subjected to a legal analysis by the Council. Slovakia’s Peter Mišík echoed this view, saying he was prepared to listen to the Spanish arguments, but would like the legal, financial and practical aspects of the Spanish request to be analysed.
Sweden’s Jessika Roswall also pointed out that “there are several minority languages that are not official languages”. In Sweden, this concerns six languages, one of which is Finnish.
On Tuesday, the European Commission pointed out that the total budget for translation had risen to €355 million by 2022. 1,400 people work as translators and 480 as interpreters, in addition to freelance professionals. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)