The recognition of Catalan, Basque and Galician as official languages of the European Union "is closer", said the acting Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, when taking stock of the debate held today in the General Affairs Council of the EU in Luxembourg on Spain's request to review the current linguistic regime of the European institutions, in which the representatives of Latvia and Lithuania have warned that, in their opinion, the European Union has "other concerns" more urgent than this issue.
The reluctance of the Baltic countries to the Spanish request has to do, in part, with their fear that any change will encourage the Russian-speaking minorities that exist in their territory, as these countries have admitted in their intervention at the meeting. , according to European diplomatic sources. Concerns of the same type can also arise in other member states, and the Government has tried to allay them by insisting that, due to their status, Catalan, Basque and Galician are "a unique case" in the EU.
The reform "is limited to the Spanish case, given that it meets unique requirements in the EU, and that other languages will not be able to benefit from this reform if the member state does not wish to do so," explained Albares. As La Vanguardia has advanced today, the Government will circulate among the other delegations of the Twenty-seven an "adapted proposal" that details the conditions that exist in the case of the co-official languages of Spain and that "makes them a unique case." , as well as the commitment of the Spanish State to assume the costs derived from the expansion of the number of official languages of the Union, currently 24.
"The European Union faces all the requests of the member states without any difficulty," the minister responded to the press in Luxembourg when asked about the possibility of the Council agreeing to find a tailored solution for the Spanish case. "In the room there has been no opposition to Spain's adapted proposal" and the atmosphere of the debate "has been constructive" and several delegations "have taken the floor to support the Spanish request," stressed Minister Albares. The debate It now moves to the technical phase, in which problems that have not arisen until now may arise.
Although Spain insists that, for now, "there are no vetoes", the Foreign Ministers of Latvia and Lithuania have had no problems in making it clear that the Spanish request does not seem to them to be a priority. "I don't think this is the 'number 1' issue for the EU right now. We have other concerns, for example the geopolitical situation and the geostrategic position of Europe in the future to focus on," he said upon arrival at the meeting. the Latvian minister, Krisjani Karins, making it clear that he does not believe that reform will happen in the short term. During the debate, Karins expressed the Government's "skepticism" towards the idea in a speech that was seconded by his Lithuanian colleague, Gabrielius Landsbergis. Portugal and Cyprus have made explicit their support for the initiative during the debate, as have Slovenia and Romania, although they ask for more work to be done at a technical level.
In total, a dozen delegations took the floor today. Catherine Colonna, the representative of France, a country that in the past stopped the request for official status of Catalan launched by the Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, stated before entering the room that Paris is studying the initiative "with an open mind", a position similar to that defended within, according to diplomatic sources ("many issues must be clarified" but "agreed to continue working with Spain"). The German delegation, for its part, has been more demanding today than at the September meeting by highlighting the "numerous implications" of the initiative and the need to "work" as soon as possible at a technical level, as countries such as Finland also demand. or Sweden.
The new draft of the adapted reform proposal on which the Government is working attacks these reluctance head-on and highlights all the features that make the case of co-official languages exceptional, diplomatic sources explain. In particular, the recognition of Catalan, Basque and Galician in the Spanish Constitution stands out, the possibility of them being used in the national Parliament, the fact that there are already certified copies of the EU treaties in these languages because Spain made use of the article of the Lisbon Treaty that provides for it, the existence of prior administrative agreements with the community institutions to allow communication in them, as well as the "ease" of finding translators and interpreters since "they are not minority languages."
Added to this is the Government's commitment to assuming the financial cost of the reform, a figure that "only the European Commission" can give, says Albares. The exact figure will be known when the institution provides the report requested last week by the Spanish presidency of the Council to the institution. The minister has qualified the announcement he made on September 19 about the Government's desire to give priority to Catalan over the other two co-official languages and has guaranteed that recognition is sought "on equal terms" for the three and only proposes "a sequential application" to "facilitate" its incorporation into the European linguistic regime, but moving forward simultaneously is not ruled out. "What we want is for this reform to be approved as soon as possible," Albares concluded.
