Catalan has become a political element in the European Union and the effort to make it an official language in the institutions of the Union, the latest of the many challenges that José Manuel Albares has addressed since he became head of Spanish diplomacy in July 2021. Although the focus is now on Junts’ demand to be able to speak Catalan in Europe as a bargaining chip for the legislature, the Spanish Foreign Minister has already made a request a year ago by letter to the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, to be able to include the three languages in Parliament. Sources close to Albares inform EL MUNDO that after last August 17 the minister asked by letter to the Council of the European Union to initiate the procedures so that the Spanish co-official languages could be used in the institutions, his objective now is to ensure that no State vetoes it and be included in the Council conclusions. Faced with this procedure, the main resistance that is being found is from “ministers from conservative countries and deputies from the European PP.”
Albares has been working hard these weeks on this assignment from Sánchez. Diplomats with a long career remember the great tune that exists between the president and his minister, whom he trusts almost blindly: “AlmostHe has never said no to a proposal, and Albares is fully in tune with the president. However, he has been at his side for many years,” they say. That is why the minister hopes to do everything possible to achieve the use of Catalan in Europe. That is why the politician put it on the table again last week in Murcia. , where he met with his European counterparts and where he has managed to make the languages include as a point of the day next 24th at the meeting of the General Affairs Council (CAG). “He has a lot of hope that it will go ahead. The fact that Spain has already approved the use in the national parliament, and that Spain has offered to assume the financing believes that this measure is an important step forward to achieve this.
Sources in Brussels, however, find it difficult to include it in the final conclusions and believe that Albares’ argument about the European PP is not enough. “It’s true that they are making a lot of noise, but what worries really to the States is the bureaucratic and economic cost, in addition to all the implications which may subsequently include three co-official languages at once,” they say.
In any case, Albares’ work has been publicly recognized, not only by Pedro Sánchez. On September 19, Carles Puigdemont publicly thanked the minister for his commitment to pushing this measure forward. “They have never spoken nor have they had contact. The minister was surprised by this gratitude because he wants Catalan to be spoken in the European Parliament beyond Puigdemont’s motives,” says another diplomat familiar with the evolution of these works.
In these two years, Albares has become head of the Ministry in the plumber of Sánchez in his international negotiations. If he now works to ensure that Catalan is spoken in Parliament, also taking advantage of the advantageous situation of holding the presidency of the Council, he previously worked in deactivate foreign propaganda separatist that was launched from the Catalan embassies. Albares then worked to explain the reality of the situation to the foreign consuls on a diplomatic mission in Barcelona, and is now working to explain that Catalan is a language spoken by 9 million inhabitants, more than the number of inhabitants of other countries. from the EU such as Malta, Bulgaria, Slovenia…