Today, the Spanish Government will once again bring to the table of the Council of General Affairs of the European Union its demand for the officialization of Catalan, Basque and Galician in the community institutions, a debate that is not expected to come out no decision
It will be the second time that the Twenty-seven will address the issue at ministerial level, and the aim of the head of the Spanish delegation, José Manuel Albares, is to resolve the doubts previously raised by the European partners through an oral presentation of the situation From there, the Spanish Government will refine the draft of its proposed reform of the Council's regulations governing the linguistic regime of the Union's institutions.
Moncloa's strategy is to make clear the "specificity" of Spanish co-official languages and to limit as much as possible the definition and conditions under which others could claim to be recognized as official by the EU, which currently has 24 official languages . Among the elements that Spain wields and that could be taken into account when expanding the current language regime is the constitutional recognition of the language in a Member State, having made use of Article 55.2 of the Treaty of Lisbon that allows this document to be translated into "co-official languages", something that only Spain and the Netherlands have done with Frisian, or to have prior administrative agreements to allow citizens to communicate in these languages with the EU, such as those that Spain signed more than 15 years ago, diplomatic sources explain.
The new legislative draft, which will replace the proposal presented in September, will be sent to the Twenty-seven after today's council, to incorporate the conclusions of this second debate that will take place today, diplomatic sources explain. At the same time, the Central Government has requested a report from the European Commission on the financial and logistical impact that the addition of three more languages to those recognized as official by the Union would have.
During the previous meeting of the Council of General Affairs, Albares announced that the Spanish Government is ready to take charge of the expenses that the expansion of the EU's language regime entails and, at the end of the ministerial debate, he raised to his colleagues to give "priority" to Catalan and begin its "deployment" as an official language of the European Union, ahead of Basque or Galician. The Spanish offer to cover the costs of the reform was well received by some delegations, such as the Austrian one, but it does not resolve the main reservations expressed by the European partners, which are rather political or legal in nature.
Around half of the 27 EU member states have expressed doubts about the Spanish request and want more information. Germany and France have adopted an open attitude regarding the request, even expressing their desire to "help" Pedro Sánchez, but from other countries, in some cases governed by conservative parties, there is reluctance to take a la carte decisions that can have a direct impact on national political debates. There is also, in general, a certain anxiety in relation to the linguistic implications that the next enlargement will have.
Until now, the Spanish Government has opted to keep the discussion at a political level and only considers bringing it to a technical level when it has a solid document from a legal point of view, but also from a political point of view, so that it does not arouse suspicion in any country. The eastern partners, for example, do not want anything that could give wings to the recognition of their Russian-speaking minorities. It will be this text that, eventually, could be submitted to the examination of the legal services of the Council, as requested by France and other countries as a step prior to any decision.
