April 2004

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NEW SPANISH PRESIDENT WILL ADVOCATE FOR CATALAN TO BE INCLUDED IN THE EUROPEAN CONSTITUTION (Vilaweb / Avui)

April 2004 – José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the newly elected Spanish President, said during the investiture debate, on 15 April, that he will try that Catalan be recognised within the European Constitution, in response to the demand formulated by Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), the Catalan independentist party. In particular, his commitment refers to making Catalan a ‘Treaty language’ by including it in Article IV-10 (‘Languages’), which contains a list of the languages in which the Treaty establishing the Constitution shall be drawn up. Thus, according to Articles II-41 and III-12, citizens could contact the EU institutions in Catalan, the latter then being compelled also to reply in Catalan in that instance, as it already happens with Irish. Such institutions are: the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council of Ministers, the European Commission, the Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors, the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee, as well as the European Ombudsman. However, Rodríguez Zapatero also warned that such a move is very difficult to achieve considering that there is very little time left before the Magna Charta is adopted. If in the end he does not manage to attain this goal, he showed his “commitment of respect and support” to all of Spain’s official languages by stating that he will impel that the Constitution be translated into Catalan, Basque and Galician. Furthermore, among the other demands expressed by ERC was also the need to launch a law on languages, since at present only regional laws regulate the official status of languages other than Spanish.