The Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, sent a letter to the President of the European Chamber, Roberta Metsola, asking her to The use of Catalan, Basque and Galician as official languages is approved in the European Parliament.
It is the third time that Albares formally requests Metsola to adopt an administrative arrangement allowing the use of the three co-official languages in the European Parliament, as is already the case in other Community institutions, following the letters sent in September 2022 and March 2024. Currently, there are “administrative arrangements” within the Council and the European Commission that allow the translation of a large number of their documents into co-official languages.
In the letter, the minister considers that the beginning of the new legislature constitutes a “privileged opportunity” to advance what he defines as “a priority issue” for Spain.
Albares demands power to address “personally” with Metsola the possibility of bringing to the European Parliament the administrative agreement that allows the use of Catalan, Basque and Galician.
As an argument in favour of this approach, the Minister of Foreign Affairs emphasises the need to Bringing European institutions closer to citizens and states that more than 20 million people live in areas where these languages are spoken, regardless of whether they are recognized by the Constitution and are working languages in Congress and the Senate.
This initiative, for which the minister has repeatedly asked for the support of the PP, given that his political family is in the majority in the European Parliament, is independent of the one launched last summer. in exchange for the support of Junts on the election of Francina Armengol as President of the Congress.
Albares then asked the EU Council to include Catalan, Basque and Galician in the language regime as official languages. For this to be possible, Unanimity of the Twenty-Seven is requiredThe government took advantage of the rotating presidency that Spain held in the second half of 2023 to try to promote its proposal, but failed to obtain the necessary supportgiven the doubts of some partners about the possibility of creating precedents in relation to other minority languages.
To overcome this obstacle, the government has proposed that Spain bears the translation costs which would mean the inclusion of these three new languages, which would be added to the 24 already official in the EU. According to Brussels estimates, the bill would amount to 132 million euros annually.
The contents of the letter, dated September 18, are also known in full debate due to the lack of parliamentary support for the government after Junts announced that would not support spending cap and force the Executive to postpone the vote scheduled for Thursday.
