The Diplomat
The President of the Basque Government, Íñigo Urkullu, through the General Secretariat for Foreign Action and the European Union, sent a letter to the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, in which he expresses his “concern” about the proposal that made on Tuesday in the General Affairs Council of the EU, to give priority to Catalan over Basque and Galician, in inclusion as official languages of the European Union.
The Spanish initiative was put on hold “sine die”, because the EU countries demanded that they first have a legal opinion and a study on the economic, political and practical consequences, and they did not take into consideration the offer made by Albares, on behalf of the Government. , to begin with Catalan, and continue later with the other two co-official languages.
But this last proposal raised blisters among the Basque and Galician leaders. And yesterday, in statements to journalists, after the opening of the 2023-2024 academic year at the University of Deusto, Urkullu revealed that he had sent a letter to the minister, because he did not like the justification he gave for prioritizing Catalan, in which included that it is spoken by 10 million people. “Firstly,” he said, “because of the insistence and, secondly, because of the number of inhabitants that a historical community or a nation like the Catalan one may have, contrasting it with the history of the Basque language itself.”
The ‘lehendakari’ believes that the fact of prioritizing Catalan “gives the impression that it has a political overtone” in view of Pedro Sánchez’s investiture session, and not based on “the reality” of the equalization in the demand for the presence of official languages in the EU. “In this sense, we will continue to insist,” he assured.
In his opinion, a path has been opened in this direction in the European Union. “From the Basque Government we have raised the strategic vision on the future of the EU also with respect to the official languages in our State and in the sense of linguistic diversity and the peoples that make it up. We are going to continue insisting on this and also This is what we have reminded the Spanish Government,” he stressed.
Iñigo Urkullu insisted that “the language that is typical of the Basques” must “be on an equal footing with other languages also within the EU,” and demanded “an equal defense of all languages that are official in the Spanish State”.
Asked if Albares’ statements giving priority to Catalan deepen his ‘discomfort’ with Pedro Sánchez, he answered no, because “everything can be improved.” “It’s not that they go deeper into the discomfort, everything can always be improved and, in this case, I believe that it abounds more in that purpose of making the relationship more fluid, better, more productive, and more beneficial for everyone,” he concluded.
