June 2004

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OFFICIAL LANGUAGES OTHER THAN SPANISH WILL BE USED IN THE SPANISH SENATE AND IN OTHER INSTITUTIONS

June 2004 – The political climate in Spain is allowing for some advance of the claims for wider linguistic rights, especially in the area of public administration. As sketched out a few weeks ago by the President of the Senate (see Mercator-Legislation News: April 2004), the introduction of multilingualism in the upper chamber is a matter of political will and now this will has become reality with the adoption on 25 May of a motion (no. 9) establishing that the Standing Orders of the Senate be reformed before the end of the year “in order to enable the use in its sittings of the languages which have official status in any Autonomous Community”, i.e. Galician, Basque and Catalan, with the vote of all parties except PP (Popular Party). Moreover, the Senate urges the Spanish Government to promote multilingualism in the State General Administration and in the European Union. In particular it refers to the use of the co-official languages in the State General Administration’s institutional image, in its documental production and in its printed material, as well as in its websites (see News: June 2003); it also calls for any necessary measures to ensure the right of any person to apply for their passport to be issued in the two co-official languages of their Autonomous Community, in accordance with European rules. As regards the possibility that Basque, Galician and Catalan be included in Article IV-10 of the future European Constitution, therefore granting citizens who speak these languages the right to address the European institutions in their tongue and receive a reply in the same language, the Senate urges the Government to “request the European Union for an adequate recognition in the framework of its language regime for the rest of the languages which have a co-official status in one or more Autonomous Communities” and it gives “support to the efforts the Government is making” for the recognition of this right. Further to this call, another motion (no. 8) was also adopted urging the Government “to defend the recognition of the State’s official languages, along with Spanish, in the European and international institutions”.