The possible use of the Catalan language in the institutions of the Union has fully entered the European agenda. For the first time, the Bureau of the European Parliament, the body that brings together its highest authorities, yesterday examined the possibility of using Catalan, Basque and Galician during its plenary sessions.
It was a brief discussion and no decisions were made but, after listening to the groups' positions, the president of the European Parliament, the popular Maltese Roberta Metsola, decided to instruct the secretary general of the institution to prepare a "more informed" discussion - it is understood that with the preparation of an administrative report on how it would be applied in practice – to be addressed later, several parliamentary sources explained.
The debate served to take the pulse of the decisions of the different political families. The European socialist group, driving the debate together with the Greens, declared itself in favor of the initiative and has asked that the European Parliament "prepare to make a decision before the end of this year." The Greens and the United Left also supported addressing the issue, while the representatives of the European People's Party and the Conservatives and Reformists declared themselves against and the liberal group (Renew, to which Ciudadanos is attached) proposed leaving the debate until January 2024. .
Last year, the Spanish Government reactivated the 2005 request to close an administrative agreement with the European Parliament similar to the one that exists with the Committee of Regions, for which Spain pays, to expand its use in the chamber, but the matter had never been raised. to the Board for not having, a priori, a sufficient majority to move it forward.
The trigger for yesterday's debate in Strasbourg was the Government's decision to include in the agenda of the General Affairs Council on September 19 the request to recognize the co-official languages of the State as official languages of the EU. This request is more ambitious than the one from 2005 and, if successful, would place Catalan, Basque and Galician on an equal footing with the club's 24 official languages. Metsola's position is that the European Parliament should “wait” for what the Council decides on September 19, therefore ruling out an independent decision by the chamber in favor of the inclusion of these languages, since it considers that There is not enough majority in favor of the idea.
For Ernest Urtasun (En Comú Podem) and Diana Riba (ERC), both members of The Greens/European Free Alliance, Metsola must put the initiative to a vote and not miss this “historic opportunity” to “promote linguistic diversity in the EU” and redress the “injustice” of the Union's 14th most spoken language not being able to be fully used in its institutions.
