BRUSELAS, 14 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The recognition of Catalan, Basque and Galician as official languages ??of the European Union that Spain will try to advance next Tuesday in a meeting of 27 ministers has already collided with the reservations of several partners who do not share the urgency of the acting Government to make a decision the same day the matter is addressed and who observe with budgetary and political doubts opening the door to co-official minority languages.
On Wednesday, Sweden was the first government to appear publicly undecided by asking to examine “more thoroughly what the legal and financial consequences of the proposal are”, but other delegations have also shown their doubts in informal contacts, as reported to Europe Press different European sources, which makes it difficult for Spain to have the unanimity necessary to reach an agreement at the European General Affairs Council on the 19th.
“There are many questions, few answers and no urgency for anyone except Spain,” summarizes a diplomatic source after the request to add the three co-official languages ??to the EU framework was discussed this week in Brussels, in a first working group technical level to prepare for Tuesday’s meeting.
The matter will be examined again this Friday by the Twenty-Seven, this time at the level of ambassadors, where several countries will ask Spain for more details on the cost that the inclusion of Catalan, Basque and Galician would mean for the community coffers and other issues such as ability to have sufficient translators and interpreters.
For countries like Belgium or the Netherlands, it is difficult to make a decision without having impact evaluations or details on how to “articulate” the entry of three new languages ??and a reflection on how this will affect the functioning of the European Union.
Meanwhile, for other countries like France, where the recognition of regional languages ??is a delicate matter, the reservations go beyond the technical elements. So far, no Member State has taken a position against the Spanish proposal and some have been receptive from the first moment, but the decision requires unanimous support and there are several who ask to study the process more cautiously.
Furthermore, Spain is not the only country with minority languages ??in its territory and other delegations are concerned that opening this debate could generate a “domino effect” that awakens similar demands in other regions, explains the senior official of a Member State.
In any case, the debate at the level of ministers will take place on Tuesday in Brussels at a meeting attended by the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, something unusual because it is the Secretary of State for the EU, Pascual Navarro, who He usually represents Spain in the General Affairs Council.
In this case, both will be present, Navarro to moderate the meeting from the position of current presidency of the European Union and Albares to explain the proposal and defend it before his partners. The exchange of opinions will be taken for granted, while the voting, also planned on the agenda, will depend on what the Spanish presidency decides during the debate.
Albares’ presence on Tuesday in Brussels is nothing more than the staging of the “political will” that he himself has been defending that the Government has for his request to succeed. “I will be the one who comes to present, explain and defend the Spanish proposal,” he had announced last week in Lugo.
The head of diplomacy, like other senior officials of the Ministry and the permanent representative to the EU, have been maintaining contacts with all the European capitals to make the unique point of the case understood, since the three co-official languages ??fit into the Constitution. .
In these contacts, a “constructive spirit” had been perceived on the part of the rest of the partners who hoped could be materialized with their approval of the request conveyed by letter on August 17.
The Government has not wanted to go into details of what, according to Albares, is a “clear proposal”, and it has not been clarified whether Spain has proposed to its partners a specific calendar for Catalan, Basque and Galician to begin to be used as languages. EU officials.
It should be remembered that in the only case in which a new official language was included, Gaelic, although the decision was adopted in 2007, it was not fully implemented until 2022 at the request of Ireland itself due to the complication of translating all the documents.
