The European General Affairs Council will deliberate again next Tuesday on the inclusion of Catalan, Basque and Galician in the list of official languages of the European Union. The matter will be discussed after a discreet round of talks between the Spanish Government and other European executives, especially with those who last September showed some type of reluctance, without reaching a veto. It is not expected that there will be a final vote next Tuesday, but a key is being drawn that could open the door to Catalan.
The key is the following: the specificity of the Catalan language in Europe. A language spoken by ten million people in a geographical area that includes Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, the Valencian Community, various towns in eastern Aragon, Andorra, French Roussillon and the Italian city of Alghero, on the island of Sardinia.
In that vast geographical area of southern Europe, millions of people say
First tooth of the key: the dimension. As we have seen, Catalan is more widely spoken than other official languages of the Union, but it does not enjoy recognition in Brussels to the extent that it is not the official language of a Member State. That is the norm, and that norm is not going to be fundamentally modified. But it can be filed, introducing the possibility of some exception to this. First requirement for this exception: having a large number of speakers. Would a threshold be set? The sources consulted avoid specifying this point.
Second tooth of the key: having the rank of co-official language in its territory. This recognition exists in Spain. Other European linguistic minorities do not enjoy this status, which illustrates the progress that the 1978 Constitution represented in a country in which the dictatorship had proposed converting Catalan, Basque and Galician into regional dialects on the verge of extinction. .
Third tooth of the key: language of official use in the Parliament of an EU Member State. It would be difficult to request a change of regulation in the European Parliament if multilingualism was not first authorized in the Spanish Parliament. Since last September 19, Catalan, Basque and Galician can be used in the deliberations of the Congress of Deputies. In the Senate, this rule has been in force since 2011. Last Thursday, the president of the Generalitat of Catalonia,
A language with a large number of speakers, recognized by the Constitution and with the status of official language in the Spanish Parliament. These three conditions are not available to all minority languages in Europe. Specificity. That would be the key. These are the regulatory conditions that could be accepted by some countries that do not have a special interest in blocking the Spanish initiative, but that do not want the situation they are facing.
There are reluctance of another kind. The PP has asked the European People's Party for help, and its president,
Countries that have explicitly supported the initiative from the beginning: Portugal, Romania, Belgium, Slovenia and Cyprus. We will soon know if the key turns in the lock.
