The official status of Catalan, Basque and Galician in the EU once again takes center stage in the midst of the negotiation of the General State Budgets and, specifically, the tension expressed by Carles Puigdemont with Pedro Sánchez. The Government is trying to reactivate the matter as a gesture to Junts, despite the fact that progress in the community club is complicated given that making these languages official requires the unanimity of the 27 and the reluctance of several countries continues. The official status of Catalan in the EU was one of the commitments of the socialists with the pro-independence forces during the investiture negotiations in the summer of 2023.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has addressed the matter with his counterpart from Poland, the country that will hold the rotating presidency of the EU Council for the next six months. “Last week I sent you a letter attaching the memorandum of the conditions and how it would be carried out,” Albares explained upon his arrival in Brussels. Among the arguments that the head of European diplomacy has reiterated are “national identity”, the fact that millions of people use those languages in Spain and the “protection of multilingualism” which he recalled is a matter covered by the treaties of the EU. “It is a goal that we should all have,” he noted.
After the meeting, government sources explained that Albares has asked his Polish counterpart to continue “promoting” the matter. “The Polish Foreign Minister, who has reported being informed of the issue, and Albares, have agreed to take a further step through a meeting of their respective EU Secretaries of State that will be held soon to achieve that objective,” they point out. sources.
However, there is still a way to go before the official status of Catalan, Basque and Galician becomes a reality. Not only because of the reluctance of several member states, which fear that the debate could be opened for minority languages existing in other territories of Europe, but because the reports that were required from Spain to be able to address the issue in depth are still missing.
One of them is economic impact. The European Commission prepared a preliminary one based on the introduction of Gaelic a few years ago. The European Commission’s calculation is that the official status of these three languages would cost around 132 million euros annually. The Government has always said that Spain would assume the costs.
The Government has also drawn up a legal argument based on the “uniqueness” of the official Spanish languages that allows the creation of Catalan, Basque and Galician a unique case in the EU to try to convince governments that fear that it will open that debate in their corresponding countries.
Thus, among the specificities that Spain uses regarding these three languages is that they have constitutional recognition, use in the national Parliament, the administrative agreements that have governed their use in the European Union for years, as well as the deposit of certified copies of the treaties. before the Council of the European Union in those languages. “This whole group of conditions is only met by the Spanish co-official languages in the Union,” Albares defended a year ago in Brussels.
Recently, the Government also asked for a “boost” to the official status of Catalan, Basque and Galician in the European Parliament, although in that case it goes another way and depends largely on political will. That is why Albares reiterated this Monday that this is not a “politicized issue” and that it should not be seen as “some Spaniards against others.” He has also demanded support from the rest of the political forces, in a message to the PP, which is the political family of the president of the European Chamber, Roberta Metsola, with whom the minister met two weeks ago to insist on the request.
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