Eduardo González
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has asked for the support of all parliamentary groups in Congress and the Senate so that the Spanish co-official languages “become official languages of the EU.”
In his appearance before the Joint Commission for the European Union of the Congress, Albares announced yesterday that he has sent a new letter to the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, to request the use of the Spanish co-official languages (Catalan, Basque and Galician) in the plenary session of the European Parliament. Albares sent a first letter in this same sense to the Maltese leader in September 2022 and personally addressed this matter with her again last Friday, during the president’s working visit to Madrid.
In this sense, Albares asked the Commission for a parliamentary pact from the groups to ensure that Spain moves forward with its proposal to modify European regulation 1/58 that regulates the linguistic regime of the 27. “We are talking about national identity: languages co-official languages are our national identity”, and, therefore, the Government continues “working to make them co-official languages of the EU”, even with the current Presidency of Belgium, a “country fully committed to multilingualism”.
“I ask that you support me and collaborate with me in Europe, that you vote for this in the (European) Parliament and that you talk to your political families in Europe” in order to get “the support at the Parliament table to materialize this objective, which is within our reach if we all work together and in coordination,” said the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Likewise, he specified that the official status of the languages “does not require the modification of treaties” and recalled that the inclusion of the three Spanish languages “would not imply any legal precedent for any other State, nor would it imply additional expenses for the Union, because Spain would assume them.”
The modification of the European linguistic regime to make Catalan, Basque and Galician official within the European Union was one of the commitments between the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the Catalan independentists of Junts to obtain their support in the investiture.
For this reason, the Government took advantage of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU to introduce the topic in four consecutive meetings of the General Affairs Council (September 19, October 24, November 15 and December 12, 2023), in two of which even Albares appeared, something unusual in this type of meeting. Despite this insistence, the four meetings concluded without any concrete decision, except the commitment to refer the matter to the future Belgian Presidency. The agenda of the first CAG of the Belgian semester, held on January 29, did not include the official status of the Spanish co-official languages in the Union.
To convince the rest of the European partners, Spain had presented an “adapted” proposal by which it agreed to assume the costs of translation and interpretation of the three languages in the EU and made it very clear that the reform would be limited “exclusively to the case of Spain” and, therefore, would not give rise to other languages being protected “in this reform if the Member State does not wish to do so.”
Sanctions on twelve settlers in Gaza
On the other hand, Albares also announced yesterday before the Joint Commission that the Spanish Government has “initiated the procedures to impose sanctions on a first group of twelve violent settlers from the West Bank”, just as countries such as the United States or the United Kingdom have done and the given the EU’s inability to reach an agreement in this regard due to Hungary’s blockade.
Likewise, he proposed another parliamentary agreement to the deputies and senators of the Joint Commission in favor of the proposals of the Government of Spain to seek peace in the Middle East, which include the request for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the celebration of a subsequent peace conference that manages to materialize a Palestinian State.
Two other pacts: Gibraltar and Ukraine
During the appearance, Albares proposed two other parliamentary pacts for “State” issues: support for Spain’s proposal for Gibraltar to join after the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU, in order to “create an area of shared prosperity.” preserving “the Spanish legal position” regarding the sovereignty of the colony, and consolidating Spain’s support for Ukraine in its fight for peace, freedom, sovereignty and territorial integrity.
