<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>After ten years, the Instituto Cervantes has once again taken over the teaching of Spanish in the institutions, bodies, and agencies of the European Union.</strong></h4> The contract, with a maximum value of €8.58 million and an expected duration of four years, will provide online classes for all EU staff, in addition to in-person training in Brussels and Luxembourg. Classes will begin on September 22, according to a press release from Spain's leading public diplomacy institution. The Instituto Cervantes' proposal won first place in the award process, with a final score of 90.37. According to the Institute, the jury "highlighted the pedagogical coherence of the project, with clear objectives aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Europe (CEFR), as well as the relevance of the content to a diverse and multicultural European professional environment." The “quality of the teaching staff and the innovative use of digital tools, which facilitate independent learning and personalized student monitoring,” were also highly praised. With this new contract, the Instituto Cervantes will triple its academic activity in Brussels and strengthen its role as a leader in the teaching and dissemination of Spanish in Europe, the Instituto Cervantes emphasized. The awarding of the tender for language training “coincides with an unprecedented growth in demand for Spanish,” according to the Institute. The European Commission has set the number of hours of study for this language at 130,324, more than double the number in the previous contract. “Spanish thus becomes the language with the greatest growth, ahead of English and German, and, in terms of number of hours, only behind French,” it added. <h5><strong>Resumption of Spanish classes</strong></h5> The Instituto Cervantes has not offered Spanish classes in European institutions since 2015. In the last competition it entered, in 2020, it came in second with a total score of 87.40, behind the Centre de Langues de Louvain (CLL) of the University of Leuven, which achieved 88.89 points. The same institution was the sole winner of the eight language lots, including English, French, Italian, and German. This award was appealed before the Court of Justice of the European Union, but the Spanish institution's appeal was dismissed last July. European calls for tender are for four-year periods, so a new procedure for language training for EU staff, to which the Instituto Cervantes applied, was published again in the fall of 2024. The institution was informed on June 6 that it had won first place, and the contract was signed on August 12. "The institution thus reestablishes the teaching of Spanish in the European institutions and its role as a key partner in the Union's language policy," the press release concludes.
