Sweden This Wednesday, it made official its reservations to the idea of including Catalan, Basque and Basque as official languages of the European Union. In the month of August, and as part of the negotiations between the Socialist Party and the Catalan independentists for the election of Francina Armengol as president of the Congress board, the Foreign Minister, Jose Manuel Albaressent a request for the Union to study the modification of the current regulation that limits the number of official languages in which community documents are spoken and translated.
Junts per Cat demanded firm proof, with a seal, that the Government was really promoting the idea, and not just promising it. And he got it. Albares sent a letter to the rotating presidency of the Council, but since it was Spain itself in this semester, he gave a copy to the general secretary of the Council. The express request was to include in the agenda for the next day EU General Affairs Council the issue, through what is known as a motion for debate and approval. That is: that the immediate modification of the regulations be discussed at the level of the ambassadors first, and then the ministers, so that the three languages that are co-official in our country in their respective autonomous communities could be for community use. The decision is made at the level of ministers and must be unanimous.
The issue remains on that agenda, and will be addressed this Friday by the ambassadors of the 27 to the EU, who are the ones who prepare the CAGs, which are a kind of mixed bag. The ministers of European Affairs usually attend, if they have their own portfolio, or the secretaries of State for the EU, which is the case of Spain. Albares never attends these types of meetings, but on Tuesday he will be in Brussels so that it is clear to the rest of the European partners that the issue is a priority for Madrid.
The problem is that there is little appetite. The idea of adding three more languages at once is unthinkable for many countries. There are some for whom it is not a concern at a political level. There are some who are concerned about the economic cost or the administrative mess, since the process is already quite slow at 27. And if three languages suddenly enter that are not official throughout the country, it could be a ‘dangerous’ precedent for management level. And then there are those who, for internal reasons, see it as a nightmare. As is the case of Francewhich has a very delicate relationship with the use of anything other than French in administration.
Sweden is in the second group. “The Government is reluctant to review the regulations for Catalan, Basque and Galician to become official and working languages in the EU institutions. The Government believes that in order to adopt a definitive position an analysis of the consequences of the proposal, both on the effectiveness of the functioning of the EU and for the budgets,” reads the Executive’s statement, collected by Bloomberg.