The European Parliament will evaluate the impact that would have the recognition of Catalan, Basque and Galician as languages of use during its plenary sessions, a step decided by the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, to have sufficient data before ruling on the Government’s repeated request to make these languages official in the European Union.
This is what Metsola herself told the rest of the Parliamentary Council this Monday during a meeting in Strasbourg (France) during which the president also shared the latest letter sent by the Spanish government to defend this measure, as parliamentary sources indicate to Europe. .
Concretely, the analytical work will correspond to the working group of the Table on Language and Linguistic Services for Citizens made up of five vice-presidents of the European Parliament, two of whom are Spanish: Esteban González Pons (PP) and Javi López (PSC) .
The working group, created last September before Albares’ last letter, is chaired by a liberal Slovak MEP, Martin Hojsík, as well as a representative of the European left, the French Younous Omarjee, and another ultra-conservative from ECR, the Italian Antonella Sberna.
Metsola has not set a date for concluding the impact assessment, but sources consulted by Europa Press speak of “months rather than weeks”, while ruling out that the work could be further delayed at legislative level. The aim is to have clear data on the cost that translation in plenary sessions would entail in terms of staff and infrastructure, but also to assess other associated elements such as whether there would be sufficient qualified personnel to provide interpretation in the three languages, for example.
“It’s about finding a solution” and being able to “make decisions” on the basis of the conclusions and proposals that come from the working group, say the sources, who recall that, although the issue is a priority in the he agenda of the current Spanish government Government, the The situation of minority languages is not an exclusive concern of Spain.
It is not in vain, even if the government defends that the specificity of the Spanish case and the co-official languages cannot be extrapolated to another Member State, from Brussels it considers this debate as a question of interest for the all 27 to the precedent that this could create with regard to other minority languages spoken in other EU countries.
Up to three letters from Albares
Although this is the third time that the official Catalan, Basque and Galician languages come to the table, it is the first time that this point has been followed up, because in the past there was no “appetite” for address the substantive debate. This also happens after the change of legislature during which the distribution of representatives of the different parties within the “Bureau” of the European Parliament changed.
Since September 2022, Metsola has received three official letters from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, demanding the use of the three co-official languages in the European Parliament, following the path of “administrative procedure”. arrangements” which already exist within the Council and the European Commission.
Alongside this process, the government has also attempted to implement a proposal to change EU language regulations so that these three languages are recognized as official at community level, which is one of the requirements included in the PSOE agreement. with Junts to ensure the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez.
However, the reluctance of several countries has meant that this negotiation remains blocked in the Council due to the legal, practical and financial doubts that several capitals have regarding the recognition of the three languages. To remove doubts, the government proposed that Spain assume the translation costs that would result from the inclusion of these three new languages as official languages in the EU.
According to preliminary estimates from the European Commission, the bill would amount to €132 million per year, but this figure is based on the experience of Gaelic and its use in all European institutions, and therefore cannot be extrapolated to the use of Galician and Basque. plenary sessions.
