You speak perfect Catalan...
I learned it 35 years ago in Manresa!
And will it serve as an interpreter when it is already an official language in the EU?
It already works for me, because Catalan, Basque and Galician are already used in the European institutions - I myself have translated from English to Catalan in a dozen committees at the request of a MEP - and they are today official in the Committee of the Regions of Europe.
Is the EU prepared to make them as official as the 24 languages that are?
Of course, for Catalan there are plenty of interpreters: I would say that 20% of the Spanish interpreters and translators are Catalans who, like myself and many other Europeans, studied at the EUTI in Barcelona.
The Financial Times notes that EU diplomacy is reluctant to make Catalan official.
Because in the Commission there are many in favor of only using three working languages: English, French and German.
Without even Spanish? You trust me short.
At the moment, they cannot achieve it, but they insist on the cost and hassle of so many booths and translators for 24 languages, which would now be 27 with Catalan, Galician and Basque.
Among the current 24 official languages, aren't there many almost the same?
Let's see: between the Serbian and the Croatian...
It used to be Serbo-Croatian, but Serbian is written in Cyrillic and Croatian in Latin.
Or between Czech and Slovak, for example, there are only dialectal differences...
And weren't they previously ignored until each one became a state language?
...As between Dutch and Flemish, variants of Dutch, and both official. Catalan-Valencian-Mallorca, on the other hand, would be the same language in the EU.
How will this tension be resolved in the EU between practical reason and identity reason?
I think applying one or the other depending on the occasion. In a session of the European Parliament, for example, it does make sense that each deputy wants to use his own language.
It is curious that English is now only dependent on being an official of Ireland...
...and from Malta, yes, which in addition to English has Maltese, like Ireland has Gaelic, although only 60,000 people speak it.
It has taken seven years, I have read, to translate the entire EU legal corpus into Gaelic.
But it cannot be compared to Catalan, a language spoken daily by millions of people and their Euro representatives.
Do you think the Catalan will be considered official at the Council meeting on the 19th?
In addition to its use in the European Parliament, this would mean the translation of all current regulations and those generated in the future: an enormous task. But the number of Catalan speakers, ten million, is triple that of Danish, for example.
Will there now be room for interpreters for 27 languages in the booths of the European Parliament?
In Council meetings it is unusual for 24 languages to be required at the same time. Many prefer English directly because they discuss technical texts in which a comma or a nuance counts; On the other hand, in the European Parliament no one gives up, even if he is the only one who understands it, to use his own language. And that is the right that Catalan speakers there now wield.
Doesn't investing in translating mean investing in the EU's communication infrastructure?
It is a good way to look at it, but we cannot deny that it is an expensive infrastructure, because the cost of an interpreter – diet, food, accommodation – is high and recurring.
Is it difficult today to manage Basque, Galician and Catalan in the Committee of Regions?
The Committee of the Regions has sessions every two months and needs interpreters for two days. It does not pose any logistical problems, at least for now.
Are there so many interpreters from Basque to German or from Catalan to Dutch?
I have colleagues capable of translating from Catalan, Galician and Basque to the major European languages, and Catalan also to the minority ones. From Galician or Basque, I am not so sure right now that we have enough prepared professionals.
And do you feel prepared?
I am and also in one of my best moments in the EU; because I just added another language to my resume: Romanian, in addition to the French, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Catalan that I had...And I plan to continue.
Why did you come to study in Barcelona from Lincoln?
Because I wanted to be an interpreter. And as an English speaker – don't confuse native English with universal Globish – I was also fascinated by Spanish and learned Catalan in a year. I was very excited to be a translator in Barcelona during the 1992 Olympic Games.
Did it go well?
Things didn't go as planned, but they turned out well in another way: in the EU.
