<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>Brussels will host the second General Affairs Council of the current Polish presidency of the EU Council on Tuesday, and, as was the case with the first, the Spanish proposal for the officialisation of Catalan, Basque and Galician in the European institutions will not be on the agenda.</strong></h4> Specifically, the agenda of the meeting, which will bring together the ministers or those responsible for European Affairs of the 27 Member States, includes the preparation of the European Council on 20 and 21 March, the presentation of the annual and multiannual work programme of the European Commission and an exchange of views on the future of Europe. In addition, the Polish Presidency will inform the Council about the recent informal meeting of EU European Affairs ministers, which was held in Warsaw on 17 and 18 February and at which the subject of languages was not addressed either. On January 29, Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said that his Polish counterpart, Radoslaw Sikorski, had promised him to include the issue of the official status of Catalan, Basque and Galician in the European institutions on the agenda of the current Polish Presidency. Spain's intention is to submit this issue to the "decision of all EU Member States" during the Polish Presidency and Sikorski has promised to "help as much as possible, putting this issue on his agenda," Albares said during a joint press conference in Warsaw. The meeting between Albares and Sikorski took place the day after the first General Affairs Council of the Polish Presidency, which addressed the priorities of the Polish semester, the annual dialogue on the Rule of Law, a French proposal on the integrity of electoral processes in Europe in the face of external interference and a Czech proposal on the gradual integration of Ukraine and Moldova into the EU single market. A week later, Albares discussed the issue of languages with the Danish Minister for European Affairs, Marie Bjerre, whose country will hold the Presidency of the EU Council from 1 July. The modification of the EU's language regime requires the unanimous support of the 27 Member States. Some countries have expressed their doubts, and even their open opposition, for practical reasons (its economic cost and the problems of finding sufficient staff) and for its possible impact on other Member States with minority languages. To convince the most reticent partners, Spain has relied on the "exceptionality" and "specificity of the Spanish case", which cannot be extrapolated to other cases, and has committed to assuming the costs. The officialisation of Catalan, Basque and Galician 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 vote. The Spanish government therefore took advantage of the last Spanish Presidency of the EU Council (second half of 2023) to introduce the issue in four consecutive meetings of the General Affairs Council (19 September, 24 October, 15 November and 12 December 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 for the commitment of the imminent Belgian Presidency to “advance the work on Spain’s request during its mandate”. However, the question of languages was conspicuous by its absence from the agenda of all the General Affairs Councils of the Belgian semester. The issue also did not appear even once on the Council’s agenda during the subsequent Hungarian Presidency.
