2023-08-19 13:52:09
Newly elected Speaker of Parliament Francina Armengol is applauded by Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Second Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Diaz during a voting session at the Spanish Parliament in Madrid, Thursday August 17, 2023 PAUL WHITE / AP
The government of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez asked on Thursday August 17 that Basque, Catalan and Galician, three official languages in certain regions of the country, be recognized as official languages within the European institutions. Such a status would grant citizens of the European Union (EU) the right to access all documents and administrations in these three languages and the presence of specific interpreters and translators in the Community institutions.
Carles Puigdemont’s party, Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia), had made its support for the candidacy of socialist Francina Armengol in the election of the President of the Congress of Deputies conditional on sending this request, formalized in a letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, to the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. He proposes that the Spanish request be placed on the agenda of the next meeting of the General Affairs Council, in Brussels, on September 19.
A decision made “as part of the agreement concluded with Junts”recognized José Manuel Albares, quoted by The country. The last legislative elections having resulted in an equality of the number of deputies between the right and the left, the support of the seven deputies of Junts is essential for the Socialist Workers’ Party with a view to obtaining the investiture of Pedro Sanchez during a second vote by Parliament in the coming weeks.
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Pedro Sanchez assured on Wednesday that the promotion of the languages of his state is “a commitment that[il ]will display[t] throughout the Spanish Presidency of the European Union”. The government had already committed in 2022 to allow the recognition of Catalan in Brussels without ever formalizing its request.
No majority in Parliament
The separatist formation has added this demand to its two fundamental demands: a referendum on self-determination and an amnesty for all those prosecuted after the failure of the secession attempt. The request for recognition of the three languages at European level is very likely to remain symbolic, a unanimous vote by the Council being necessary to modify the regulations. Several Member States, in fact, would be reluctant to support a measure that the defenders of regional languages in their respective countries could endorse.
Moreover, in the event of a favorable decision, the entry into force of the measure would take several years. A member since 1973, Ireland had to make do until 2005 with a translation into Gaelic – which is its first official language, before English – only for treaties. Once the status of official language of the EU was obtained in 2007, fifteen additional years were necessary for the translations into Irish to be effective at the same level as the others in the institutions.
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Currently, the European Union has twenty-four official languages: German, Bulgarian, Czech, Croatian, Danish, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Estonian, Finnish, French, Greek, Hungarian, English, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese , Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian and Swedish. When a country becomes a member of the community, its language is added to the official languages – although exceptions exist: Luxembourgish has never had this status, just like Turkish, yet an official language of Cyprus with Greek.
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