Dossier no. 17 - The rules governing the languages of the European Union: which languages and to what extent?
A practical guide

By Bernat Pujadas

1. Introduction

In recent months several important events have taken place within the context of the European Union that have direct consequences on language issues, such as the official use of languages and all the linguistic rights that derive from it. Such events are the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (hereinafter Constitution or European Constitution), signed in Rome on 29 October 2004, and to the more recent steps made by the Irish and Spanish Governments concerning the recognition of their other languages. As regards the Constitution, it must be remembered that it has not yet gone into effect, as it still needs to be ratified by the Member States and, in principle, its entry into force will not take place before 1 November 2006. That moment will arrive as the culmination of the ratification process begun right after the text was signed, a long process which will be completed once all 25 Member States have ratified the text, either through a ‘parliamentary’ procedure or through a ‘referendum’, or both.

The question of which languages should be used in the institutions of the European Union and to what extent is currently a quite contentious issue, one with intense debate and a very noticeable presence in the mass media, especially in Spain and Ireland. However, due to the complex and sometimes little-known organisational structure and functioning of the EU, the issue of the official status of languages is often seen as something opaque and is sometimes explained in a confusing way. For this reason the present Dossier intends to answer many of the questions that arise from all these issues. In short, it intends to be a practical guide on language use within the European Union.

It is being published simultaneously with Mercator-Legislation’s Working Paper No. 17[1], by Íñigo Urrutia Libarona, which deals in great part with the same subject. There is some overlap, as both cover similar content, but each from a different perspective: the Dossier has been conceived as a complement to the Working Paper, as it analyses some issues which were left aside in the Working Paper as subjects for further discussion. Moreover, it includes the latest developments on the possible extension of the list of EU official and working languages. However, the proposals made by the Irish and Spanish Governments do not aim to place their other languages on equal ground with the 20 languages that are already official. As things stand at the moment, if all Member States agreed to accept the Irish and Spanish governments’ demands, the new group of ‘official’ languages would have a somewhat lower status, or to put it in another way, an intermediate one.

Needless to say, this Dossier maintains a positive approach to language diversity and has as its starting point the principle that all languages are equal and should be treated as such. Thus, the analysis will have a global perspective, taking all European languages into consideration, both those privileged with official recognition and those cast aside and therefore discriminated, although they are spoken by millions of European citizens. All these languages can be grouped according to the various levels of recognition they have been granted or may be granted.

2. Language officiality: a twofold concept

The concept of language ‘officiality’ in the EU is fairly complex. It is best seen as a coin with two sides since it must be explained on the basis of two main reference texts which regulate different aspects of the same issue: the European Constitution and Regulation No. 1/1958.

The Constitution is not yet in force, so for the time being only the Treaty establishing the European Community (EC Treaty)[2] is valid. Moreover, the wording of the Constitution does not fully coincide with the consolidated version of the EC Treaty, as a few modifications have been introduced during its drafting process, both by the European Convention and by the Member States, since the Convention first submitted it in July 2003. However, since it does not contain substantial linguistic differences with regard to the EC Treaty and assuming that the Constitution will most likely be ratified by all Member States and therefore will enter into force on 1 November 2006, the text of the Constitution will be used for the purpose of this Dossier.

(For the full version of the articles commented concerning the Constitution and other relevant legal texts, see the annexes)

2.1. The Constitution: languages of the Constitution (or Treaty languages)

This is the most important text, since it is the highest in legal hierarchy (Community primary legislation).

2.1.1. Article IV-448: authentic texts and translations

This article (Article 314 EC Treaty) is the most important linguistic provision in the Constitution. Its first paragraph contains a list of the languages (21) in which the Constitution is drawn up, “the texts in each of these languages being equally authentic”. These languages are referred to in other articles as “Constitution’s languages” (Art. I-10(2)(d)) and “languages of the Constitution” (Art. II-101(4)). It should be noted that Article IV-448 does not approach the languages it mentions as “official languages”. In fact, the terms “official language” or “official languages” are not found in the Constitution, so it could be said that the purpose of this provision and of the Constitution as a whole is not to declare the official status of languages nor to regulate the institutional use of languages, but simply to determine which linguistic versions are authentic, with a series of rights derived from this fact. The legal text dealing with “official languages” is not the Constitution, but Regulation No. 1/1958, of a lower legal rank.

The second paragraph of Article IV-448 allows Member States to provide a translation of the Constitution into any other languages “among those which, in accordance with their constitutional order, enjoy official status in all or part of their territory”. And it adds that “a certified copy of such translations shall be provided by the Member States concerned to be deposited in the archives of the Council”. This provision was added during the Intergovernmental Conference of 17-18 June 2004 and, although it constitutes some progress, it is rather symbolic, as a translation of the Constitution does not have any legal effects, despite being certified by the Member State concerned and being deposited in the archives of the Council. Moreover, up to now, only Spain has actually provided a translation of the Constitution into other languages, as will be discussed later.

2.1.2. Articles I-10, II-101 and III-128: citizens’ dealings with the European institutions

Although from different perspectives, these three articles (only one article in the EC Treaty, Article 21) recognise the right of citizens to use the “languages of the Constitution” in their dealings with the EU institutions. It is a linguistic right with a direct connection to Article IV-448, as it can only be exercised in the languages listed in that article. So all languages included in Article IV-448, apart from being “authentic text” languages, automatically benefit from an advantage, the so-called right of petition. Specifically it is the right:

– to petition the European Parliament,
– to apply to the European Ombudsman, or
– to address or
– to write to
the institutions in any of the languages of the Constitution and receive an answer in the same language.

This right is expressed in the form of three different articles, which have similar content:

• Article I-10: Citizenship of the Union

“2. Citizens of the Union shall enjoy […] (d) the right to petition the European Parliament, to apply to the European Ombudsman, and to address the Institutions and advisory bodies of the Union in any of the Constitution's languages and to obtain a reply in the same language.”

• Article II-101: Right to good administration

“4. Every person may write to the institutions of the Union in one of the languages of the Constitution and must have an answer in the same language.”

• Article III-128

“The languages in which every citizen of the Union has the right to address the institutions or bodies under Article I-10(2)(d), and to have an answer, are those listed in Article IV-448(1). The institutions and bodies referred to in Article I-10(2)(d) are those listed in Articles I-19(1), second subparagraph, I-30, I-31 and I-32 and also the European Ombudsman.”

As can be perceived, the names of the institutions are quoted in a heterogeneous way. Article I-10 explicitly cites the European Parliament, the European Ombudsman, and the “Institutions and advisory bodies of the Union”. These institutions and bodies are, nonetheless, quoted later, in Article III-128. By contrast, Article II-101 does not name any institution but instead makes a general reference to “the institutions of the Union”. And finally, Article III-128 does state which are the institutions and bodies of the Union, although it lists them in an indirect way by citing other articles. Such institutions and bodies are the following:

– the European Parliament,
– the European Council,
– the Council of Ministers,
– the European Commission,
– the Court of Justice of the European Union,
– the European Central Bank,
– the Court of Auditors,
– the Committee of the Regions, and
– the Economic and Social Committee.

2.1.3. Article III-433: a regulation on the languages of the Union’s Institutions

The Constitution does not set any rules regarding the use of languages within the Union’s institutions. It simply empowers the Council to “adopt unanimously a regulation laying down the rules governing the languages of the Union's Institutions languages, without prejudice to the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union.” (Article III-433; Article 290 EC Treaty). Such a regulation is the already mentioned Regulation No. 1/1958. Thus, the internal use of languages in the institutions is not set through primary but through secondary legislation.

As Íñigo Urrutia Libarona points out (op. cit.), the fact that such an important decision is left solely to the Council, without the participation of the European Parliament or the Commission, and that it is not to be reached by a majority or by a qualified majority, but unanimously, indicates that this linguistic issue is one of utmost political relevance.

2.1.4. Linguistic rights granted by the Constitution

In summary, the linguistic rights granted by the Constitution are the following:

2.2. Regulation No. 1/1958: Official and working languages

“Regulation No. 1, determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community” was adopted on 15 April 1958 by the Council, and it sets the general framework for language use in the institutions. It has been amended on several occasions with the various acts of accession, each time the Union has accepted new Member States, by adding new languages to Article 1, which contains a list of the “official languages and the working languages [20] of the institutions of the Union”.

General characteristics:

• It establishes which are the official and working languages (Art. 1)
• It only sets general principles and establishes that each EU institution may stipulate in its own rules of procedure “which of the languages are to be used in specific cases” (Art. 6)
• The only reference it makes to the languages to be used in the proceedings of the institutions affects one specific institution, the Court of Justice, which is given a high level of linguistic autonomy (Art. 7). This article says that “the languages to be used in the proceedings of the Court of Justice shall be laid down in its rules of procedure”.
• It grants several linguistic rights in connection with the “official languages” (Articles 2, 3, 4 and 5):

• Note that a distinction is made in these four articles between “official” and “working” languages, as they only mention “official languages” and omit the “working language” aspect. This relevant issue will be discussed in more detail in the next section.
• There is also a reference to those Member States which have more than one official language (Art. 8). In such cases, it is up to such Member States to decide which languages they include on the list of official and working languages. As will be discussed later, so far this article has been interpreted in a very restrictive way.

2.3. Rules of procedure of the institutions

The fact of being included in the list of official and working languages entails a series of rights which do not have any link with any specific institution, as Article 6 provides that the use of languages in “specific cases” is to be stipulated by each of the institutions. Therefore this list does not necessarily apply to all institutions. As discussed below, there are a great number of differences among the institutions, which apply a great diversity of criteria. Sometimes the list of languages which may be used includes and makes reference to Treaty languages (or languages of the Constitution). Furthermore, while the concept of official and working languages is, de jure, a unitary concept, in some cases it is de facto split into two different concepts: those languages strictly used for external communication, including the areas regulated by Articles 2, 3, 4 and 5 of Regulation No. 1/1958, (official languages) and those used for internal use (internal working languages) . Thus, the equality of all official languages is only formally proclaimed but not implemented in all cases.

Let us now turn to some of the Union’s institutions. Since there are a great number of them, only the rules of procedure of the main ones (the Parliament, the Council and the Commission) and of four more (the Court of Justice, the Court of First Instance, the European Ombudsman and the European Central Bank) will be analysed. However, the rules of procedures of the rest (or most of the rest) have also been included in the annexes.

2.3.1. European Parliament

It is the most multilingual institution, since it proclaims and practices full multilingualism by using all official languages. What is more: its rules of procedure also allow for the occasional use of languages other than the official ones.

Rule 138 establishes that all official languages are to be used for drawing all documents of Parliament (paragraph 1) and that all Members may speak in the official language of their choice, their speech being then simultaneously interpreted into the other official languages “and into any other language the Bureau may consider necessary” (paragraph 2). However, this has been done only on very few occasions.

As regards the official languages of the Member States which acceded to the European Union on 1 May 2004, they will be used depending on “the availability in real terms and sufficient numbers of the requisite interpreters and translators” (Rule 139, par. 1). Such transitional measure is applicable until 31 December 2006, although it can be repealed at any moment before that date, or even extended, if the Parliament deems it reasonable (Rule 139, par. 3). Moreover, the Secretary-General of the Parliament must “submit a detailed report to the Bureau on the progress made towards full application of Rule 138” (Rule 139, par. 2).

The Rules of Procedure of the Parliament contain also a rule regulating the right of petition (Rule 191, par. 3), in accordance with which “petitions must be written in one of the official languages of the European Union”, but also “petitions written in any other language will be considered only where the petitioner has attached a translation or summary drawn up in an official language of the European Union. The translation or summary shall form the basis of Parliament's work. Parliament's correspondence with the petitioner shall employ the official language in which the translation or summary is drawn up.”

There are, in addition, several other provisions concerning language use. They can be consulted in the annex.

2.3.2. Council of the European Union

There is only one reference in the Council’s Rules of Procedure to the languages to be internally used, Article 14, in accordance with which (paragraph 1) “except as otherwise decided unanimously by the Council on grounds of urgency, the Council shall deliberate and take decisions only on the basis of documents and drafts drawn up in the languages specified in the rules in force governing languages” (meaning Regulation No. 1/1958). The term “drafts” refers, in particular, to Commission proposals that must be submitted to the Council in all official languages, as clarified by a “Council Guide” . Therefore, in the event that relevant documentation is not available in a certain official language, a delegation may oppose discussion of an item. And the same applies for the texts of any proposed amendment (paragraph 2).

Be that as it may, if a document is not available in all official languages, it can nevertheless be the subject of a political agreement on the substance. However, that text may be adopted only if it is available in good and due form (i.e. finalised by the legal/linguistic experts) in all the official languages, on the basis of Article 4 of Regulation No. 1/1958 and of the procedures followed for the proposals forwarded to the Parliament.

As regards the first paragraph of Article 14, it allows for the possibility of waiving it, provided that the Council decides it “unanimously” and that it is a matter of “urgency”. Such waiver is mainly used in the first few months following the accession of new Member States to the European Union, as revised translations in their languages may not be available within the period laid down. It may be also used in very specific cases in the field of common foreign and security policy (for more information about this, see the above-mentioned Council Guide, pages 18-19).

Therefore, on account of all these exceptions, it may be said that Article 14 allows for a considerable reduction of official and working languages.

2.3.3. European Commission

The Rules of Procedure of the Commission make few references to its internal working languages (articles 6, 12, 18 and 25). In general, it can be said that the Commission is given a wide degree of freedom in internal linguistic use, as Article 25 sets forth that “the Commission shall, as necessary, lay down rules to give effect to these Rules of Procedure” and “the Commission may adopt supplementary measures relating to the functioning of the Commission and of its departments, which shall be annexed to these Rules of Procedure”.

In particular, both Articles 6 and 12 abide by that rule, while Article 18 establishes that the instruments adopted by the Commission “shall be attached in the authentic language or languages”, meaning “the official languages of the Communities in the case of instruments of general application and the language or languages of those to whom they are addressed in other cases”.

2.3.4. Court of Justice and Court of First Instance

The Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance are very similar. Therefore, just those of the Court of Justice will be quoted. For the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance see the annex.

The Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice explicitly list which are the languages of a case: Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish or Swedish (Article 29, paragraph 1). Thus, 21 languages, i.e. the 20 official languages of the Union plus Irish, which as will be discussed below is, in fact, only a language of the Constitution (or Treaty language). However, the publications of the court shall be issued in the languages referred to in Article 1 of Council Regulation No. 1/1958, i.e. in 20 languages, among which Irish is not included (Article 30, paragraph 2). Despite this, some judgments have appeared only in the language of the case, especially those referring to issues of personnel . Still another provision sets forth that “Any Judge may require that any questions be formulated in the language of his choice and communicated in writing to the Court before being put to the vote” (Article 27, paragraph 4).

The only possibility to use other languages, without explicitly having to have any official status, is authorised by the Court in Article 29, paragraph 4: provided that “a witness or expert states that he is unable adequately to express himself in one of the languages referred to in paragraph (1) of this Article”. The Registrar shall then arrange for a translation into the language of the case.

2.3.5. European Ombudsman

The rules governing the use of languages by the European Ombudsman are established in an annex of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament (Annex X, part B). These rules establish that “any of the Treaty languages” may be used:

– citizens may submit complaints to the Ombudsman in any of these languages and the Ombudsman “is not required to deal with complaints submitted in other languages” (Article 15.1),
– “The language of proceedings conducted by the Ombudsman is one of the Treaty languages; in the case of a complaint, the language in which it is written” (Article 15.2)
– “The Ombudsman determines which documents are to be drawn up in the language of the proceedings” (Article 15.3),

However, the rules also refer to “official languages”:

– “Correspondence with the authorities of Member States is conducted in the official language of the state concerned” (Article 15.4), and
– “The annual report, special reports and, where possible, other documents published by the Ombudsman are produced in all official languages” (Article 15.5).

2.3.6. European Central Bank

The Rules of Procedure of the European Central Bank go a little bit further in overseeing official language equality, since not only do they not guarantee the de facto use of official languages but also de jure. Articles 17.2 and 17.6 provide that guidelines and instructions shall be adopted and notified in one of the official languages of the European Communities. So only one working language is guaranteed, which happens to be English, as expressly recognised by the institution itself and ratified by the Court of First Instance. Only when guidelines and instructions have to be officially published will then all official languages be used. And the same applies to “legal acts” (regulations, decisions, recommendations, opinions and sanctions) (Article 17.8).

3. Status hierarchy of languages in the EU. Current situation

3.1. Reasons for the lack of equality of all official languages

Once having analysed the concept of ‘language officiality’ on the basis of its two sides:

– the Constitution (languages of the Constitution or Treaty languages) and
– Regulation No. 1/1958 (official and working languages), plus the rules of procedure of each institution,

it becomes clear that the rules governing the languages of the Union do not guarantee the equality of all 20 official and working languages recognised. Although there is a de jure equality, their use is not guaranteed in identical terms, as there are many situations in which the number of languages used de facto is much lower. In fact, the institutions usually work only with English and French, and sometimes German. Therefore, it could be said that the rights are mitigated by the facts.

One peculiarity of the European Union is that it has had to redefine itself throughout its construction process and the rules governing the languages of its institutions are not an exception. Each time new States have joined the Union, new official languages have been added. And the criterion adopted in order to guarantee that Community legal texts be written in an understandable way for all citizens of the Member States (principles of legal security and of equality or non-discrimination) is that of ‘one State-one language’, or rather: ‘the official languages of the Union are those which are official in the whole territory of the Member States’. However, Regulation No. 1/1958 does not stipulate it explicitly, but it only refers to “official language in one or more of the Member States” (preamble) and “if a Member State has more than one official language” (Article 8). Thus, when a language is shared by more than one State, the State being the later to accesses to the Union does not have to request the officiality of its language. But then, what happens when a State has more than one official language?

Initially there were four official languages corresponding to six States: France (French), Germany (German), Italy (Italian), the Netherlands (Dutch), Belgium (French and Dutch) and Luxembourg (at that time, German and French; Luxembourgish was declared an official language of the State in 1984). Then, Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom joined in 1973, but only two more languages were added: Danish (for Denmark) and English (for the United Kingdom and Ireland). Ireland, with two State languages (English and Irish) renounced to make Irish official. Thus, it broke the criterion used until that moment, according to which official languages throughout the territory of Member States became official in the EU; and Luxembourg has not requested the officiality of Luxembourgish either. As A. Milian Massana points out in “Le principe d’egalité des langues au sein des institutions de l’Union Européenne et dans de droit communautaire, mythe ou realité?” , the two factors for this renunciation are the facts that only English is known by the whole population of the State and that only a very small proportion of Irish citizens know the Irish language. Within this context, the elimination of Irish did not represent an infringement of the principles of legal security and equality (or non-discrimination), so a criterion of sufficiency was applied, by determining the smallest number of languages possible.

The following enlargements brought the introduction of five more languages: Greek (Greece, 1981), Spanish, Portuguese (Spain and Portugal, 1986), Finnish and Swedish (Austria, Finland and Sweden, 1995). Austria did not bring a new official language, as its State language is German. In total, eleven official and working languages.

The last enlargement (1 May 2004) has been the biggest, also as regards new official languages. With 10 new countries joining, 9 official languages have been added: Czech (Czech Republic), Estonian (Estonia), Hungarian (Hungary), Latvian (Latvia), Lithuanian (Lithuania), Maltese (Malta), Polish (Poland), Slovak (Slovakia) and Slovenian (Slovenia). The two special cases are Cyprus, with Greek as its official language (already official in the EU), and Malta, with English and Maltese as official languages. Malta, unlike Ireland in 1973, did not renounce to the officiality of Maltese, despite having very few speakers (around 360.00), like Irish (around 700.000).

Thus, the cases of Irish and Maltese show that there are other possibilities apart from the ‘one State-one language’ criterion. As discussed above, Irish enjoys certain linguistic rights; this was a result of the pre-accession negotiations in 1973. Up to now, both article 8 of Regulation No. 1/1958 and the preamble have been interpreted in a restrictive way, because they only refer to official languages in the States and States having official languages, but not to official languages in the whole territory of a State, which means that there should be other possibilities open, even for languages which are official only in part of the territory of a Member State, especially since the last step made by and Spain.

In fact, the Court of First Instance has ruled that Regulation No. 1/1958 is liable to be amended as to abandon the principle of equality among the official languages, provided it merely complies with the minimal requirements of legal security, as pointed out by Marí and Strubell (op. cit).

3.2. Current hierarchy

Having thus clarified the reasons for the lack of equality of all official languages in the EU, let us now describe and summarise the linguistic stratification or hierarchy as regards language recognition.

The list of “languages of the Constitution” or “Treaty languages” (21) does not coincide with the list of “official and working languages” (20). And, as all official languages are also Treaty languages and, therefore, enjoy the linguistic rights granted on account of both statuses, a first level or category of languages may be established: the group of the 20 Treaty and official languages . Then there is Irish, which would fall into the second level or category, because it enjoys the rights granted by the Constitution, as well as several others. In the third level is Luxembourgish, a State language enjoying certain rights. Then, in the fourth level, there are the languages which enjoy official status in part of the territory of a Member State, but are not official in the EU, such as Catalan, Galician and Basque. And finally the lowest level of recognition could be established: those languages with no recognition.

These are, in summary the several status levels, with the linguistic rights currently granted on account of the European Constitution and/or Regulation No. 1/1958:

• The case of Irish (Level 2)
  – The authentic version in Irish of the Constitution and treaties is extended to other instruments or acts of primary legislation. The Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance have also an authentic version in Irish, as it is an official language in that institution.
  – The issues of the Official Journal of the European Union published in Irish are those containing the Irish version of legal texts which are equally authentic.
  – Citizens have the right to address the institutions in Irish and receive a reply in Irish (right of petition).
  – On account of its official status in the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance, Irish may be the language of a case in these institutions.
  – Irish is also eligible for the Lingua programme.

• The case of Luxembourgish (Level 3)
  Luxembourgish, an official language of the State of Luxembourg (a State language), is not and EU official and working language and neither a language of the EU Constitution. However, it is also eligible for the Lingua programme. And, moreover, a certified translation of the Constitution into Luxembourgish might be eventually done.

• Other official languages: the case of Catalan, Basque and Galician (Level 4)
  These are languages which enjoy official status in part of the territory of a Member State. As mentioned in the section regarding the Constitution, there exists the possibility that Member States provide a translation of the Constitution into these languages (Article IV-448(2)). Moreover, a declaration annexed to the Final Act of the Constitution (Declaration No. 29) develops this article by stating that this possibility “contributes to fulfilling the objective of respecting the Union's rich cultural and linguistic diversity as set forth in the fourth subparagraph of Article I-3(3) of that Treaty” and that “In this context, the Conference confirms the attachment of the Union to the cultural diversity of Europe and the special attention it will continue to pay to these and other languages. ”The declaration also adds: “The Conference recommends that those Member States wishing to avail themselves of the possibility recognised in Article IV-448(2) communicate to the Council, within six months from the date of the signature of that Treaty, the language or languages into which translations of that Treaty will be made.”

  So far this step with a rather symbolic content has been done only by Spain, for Galician, Basque and Catalan. In fact, the three translations have not been made by the Spanish State, but by the several Autonomous Communities concerned. In the case of the Catalan language there has been a long and harsh political storm, because of the fact that the Valencian Autonomous Community presented a text corresponding to “Valencian”, apparently different from that presented by the Autonomous Community of Catalonia, thus not respecting the unity of the language, at least formally, despite the fact that the Spanish Constitutional Court has ruled on several occasions that Catalan and Valencian are two names of the same language. In the end, on 4 November 2004 the Spanish Government submitted to the Council of the EU the translations in three “linguistic versions” but four texts, although it clarified that the texts corresponding to Catalan and Valencian were certified as “identical”. For more information about this issue, see Mercator-Legislation’s news.

  There is also another aspect to be taken into consideration regarding the Catalan language. The European Parliament adopted on 11 December 1990 a Resolution on languages in the Community and the situation of Catalan, in response to two petitions tabled by the Catalan Parliament and the Parliament of the Balearic Islands. In accordance with this resolution, the European Parliament decided to call on the Council and the Commission “to take whatever steps are necessary to achieve the following objectives:
  
  – the publication in Catalan of the Community's treaties and basics texts;
  – the use of Catalan for disseminating public information concerning the European institutions in all the media;
  – the inclusion of Catalan in the programmes set up by the Commission for learning European languages;
  – the use of Catalan by the Commission's offices in its written and oral dealings with the public in the Autonomous communities in question.”

  However, this resolution is not binding and it has not been put into practice. In fact, some translations have been carried out, but they have been paid by the Catalan institutions.

4. Status hierarchy of languages in the EU. Prospects for the near future

In the last months, several developments have taken place which may significantly change the current hierarchy of language statuses within the EU, since the Irish and Spanish States have submitted proposals to amend Regulation No. 1/1958. However, as already pointed out, such step can only be made with the unanimous consent of all Member States (Article III-433 of the Constitution). In the case of Spain, the Spanish State Secretary for the European Union, Alberto Navarro, has said he is convinced that Spain’s proposal will be accepted by all Member States before the summer of 2005, although he also stated that some “difficulties” may arise for its acceptance in full.

4.1. Ireland’s proposal to amend Regulation No. 1/1958

On the date this Dossier is being published, Ireland has not made public yet the text by which it formally requested official and working status for Irish, on 24 November 2004, following “the Government’s decision in July to initiate a process of discussions with the other EU Member States and EU institutions”. For the moment only a press release is available, summarising the content of the proposal, although it informs very little about its details. It only states that “the Government has sought to identify the issues arising and the practical options open to it in pursuing the objective of obtaining official and working status for the Irish language” and it adds some specific information regarding the content of Articles 4 and 5 of Regulation No. 1/1958.

In fact, the press release does not refer to any article of the Regulation, but it can be assumed that the status requested for Irish is that of the 20 official languages, with some nuances. Therefore Irish would be given the rights granted by Articles 2 and 3. As regards the drafting and publishing of legal acts (Articles 4 and 5), the release states that “the Government is proposing that certain key EU legislation (that adopted jointly by the Council and the European Parliament) would be translated into Irish. Under the proposal, the possibility of extending the range of documents to be translated into Irish would be the subject of a review to take place not later than four years after adoption of the current proposal.” Therefore for the moment certain acts published in the Official Journal (such as regulations, directives and decisions) would not be published in Irish, on account of a temporary derogation.

In summary, the request does not ask for the full status of the language in equal terms as with the rest of official and working languages, although it nearly does.

4.2. Spain’s proposal to amend Regulation No. 1/1958

The Spanish Government submitted on 13 December 2004 a memorandum with a “Request for official recognition in the European Union of all languages with official status in Spain”. These languages are defined in the proposal as “the Spanish languages, apart from Castilian (Spanish), that have official status in Spain”, and then a clarification is added: “These have already received initial recognition through the three language versions of the Treaty delivered on 4 November in Basque, Galician and the language called Catalan in the Autonomous Community of Catalonia and in that of the Balearic Islands and Valencian in the Valencian Community.”

The main feature of this proposal is that it seeks “official and working language” status for Basque, Galician and Catalan. However, as in the case of Irish, not in the same level as the rest of (20) languages, as the text proposed to replace the current Regulation No. 1/1958 places these three languages in a second paragraph of Article 1, and it restricts their officiality by adding “in the terms of and for the purposes” established in the Annex to Regulation (and also in Annex 2). These restrictions are explained in detail below. Moreover, a very noticeable difference and restriction in the status of these three languages is the fact that “The Spanish Government will underwrite the costs arising from the practical implementation of the changes sought in the language regime”. This should be especially underlined, since it is a very clear indication that both Spain and the Union are still reluctant to give full linguistic rights to these languages. By contrast, the Spanish Government also requests that these three languages “must be fully incorporated into the Union’s Lingua Program on the same footing as the other European languages whose use and teaching is currently being promoted by the Programme, not all of which, furthermore, are recognised as official languages within the European Union” (meaning Irish and Luxembourgish).

4.2.1. Changes with a general scope (external communication)

• Articles 2 and 3 (written communications with the institutions)
  They now include also the three new “official languages”. In the case of Article 3, “pursuant to the provisions of Article 8 and the Annex to this Regulation”. The annex spells out specific terms in the case of Spain, primarily in regard to the translation of documents: European institutions may request from the Spanish authorities a translation into Spanish of documents sent to the European institutions in one of the three official languages, and as for the reply these may also send it to the Spanish authorities in Spanish, which have then the responsibility to send the reply to the original sender accompanied by a translation in the language used by the latter. Thus Spanish is a necessary bridge language between the three new official languages and the rest of official languages.

• Article 5
  The Official Journal of the European Union shall be also published in Catalan, Basque and Galician. However, the annex adds: “In the event of discrepancies regarding the interpretation of a legal text published in one of the languages referred to in this Annex [Basque, Catalan and Galician] and the text of the same provision published in one of the twenty official languages listed in the first paragraph of Article 1 of this Regulation, the latter shall prevail.” Therefore, the 20 official languages stand in a higher position.

• Rights not recognised
  – Article 4 remains substantially unchanged, which means that “regulations and other documents of general application” shall not be drafted in Basque, Galician and Catalan.
  – As already highlighted, “any administrative costs arising for European Community institutions and other bodies from use of the languages referred to in [the] Annex shall be met by Spain”, while the costs arising from the use of the twenty official languages are paid by the European Union.

4.2.2. Changes with a specific scope (internal use in the institutions)

• European Parliament: A very relevant improvement is the introduction of the new languages in the speeches in plenary sessions of the Parliament. However, it would be made through passive interpreting, i.e. only from Catalan, Galician or Basque into the rest of languages, but not the other way around. And the intention to use any one the three languages should be notified seven days ahead of time.

• Committee of the Regions: The same case as the Parliament.

• Council: The same case as the Parliament. It applies only occasionally, to some ministerial meetings of the Council (“formal ministerial meetings”).

Moreover, Annex II describes the details of the practical measures proposed, affecting the translation, the interpreting and the costs.

4.3. The new possible language status hierarchy in the EU

In summary, below is a table with the new language status hierarchy in the EU provided that the Irish and Spanish proposals were to be accepted:

5. Final conclusion

To conclude, a comment on the role of languages without any recognition within the Union and the future evolution of the institutional rules governing languages, especially in view of future enlargements and of the demands for the recognition of the so-called minority languages, with or without official recognition at regional level.

It must be recalled that the European Constitution proclaims that one of the Union’s objectives is to “respect its rich cultural and linguistic diversity” (Article I-3(3)) and that, as a first step, Declaration No. 29 was annexed to the Final Act in order to contribute to fulfilling this objective. However, so far the multilingual approach followed by the Union has only benefited State languages, due to the restrictive perspective taken by States, as they have used the principle of sufficiency by choosing the smallest number of official languages possible. While official multilingualism in the institutions arises from a series of democratic principles (such as equality among States and among official languages, transparency vis-à-vis the citizens, legal security, or access to legal texts in an understandable language), a considerable proportion of European citizens see how their linguistic rights, recognised at regional level, are infringed in the European sphere, because they necessarily have to carry out their dealings with the European institutions in the official language of the State. Another example is the exclusion of many languages to the Lingua programme. Not to speak of those languages historically spoken in the territory of the EU but do not enjoy any official status whatsoever, neither at European nor at State and regional level. The only recognition for these languages is a series of non-binding European Parliament resolutions encouraging their protection.

Therefore, the Union should mitigate the strong linguistic hierarchy in place at present. However, it is also obvious that the list of official languages cannot be extended without limits, as it would be unsustainable and inefficient. So, while on the one hand new official languages may be added with future enlargements, on the other hand it seems that the number of languages should be reduced, at least in certain areas. One possible solution proposed by several authors is to make a formal distinction between official and working languages; this would allow a high number of official languages (more than at present) and a low number of internal working languages (for instance, between three and five). The concept of ‘official languages’ could entail, then, a series of linguistic rights, such as external communication with citizens or the dissemination of legal texts in order to guarantee legal security. Nonetheless, many Member States may oppose such a measure, as they may not be prepared to renounce to certain linguistic rights which they already enjoy.

Be that as it may, as the possible solutions for a wider multilingualism is a fairly complex issue, for the moment it may be just said that the likely improvement of the status of Irish, Basque, Galician and Catalan is a good start. However, the Union should carry out an in-depth analysis as to how it should redefine its linguistic approach in order to handle multilingualism in the widest sense, including also the so-called minority languages.