November 2004

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IRELAND FORMALLY REQUESTS OFFICIAL AND WORKING LANGUAGE STATUS FOR IRISH IN THE EU

November 2004 – The Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, announced on 25 November that Ireland is tabling a formal proposal requesting that official and working status be accorded to the Irish language in the European Union. The Irish Government already announced its will to do so some months ago, as reported by Mercator-Legislation (see previous news: July 2004). Nonetheless, the upgrading of the status of Irish is subject to the unanimous approval of all Member States, since it requires the amendment of the regulation governing the European institutions’ language regime (Regulation 1/1958), and this is why the request does not ask for the full status of the language in equal terms as with the rest of official and working languages. According this regulation, the Official Journal of the Community shall be published in the official languages (Art. 5); however, as stated in a press release, the Irish Government for the moment proposes that only certain key EU legislation (that adopted jointly by the Council and the European Parliament) be translated into Irish. The possibility of extending the range of documents to be translated into Irish, i. e. other acts, regulations, directives, decisions, and the judgments from the European Court of Justice, will be reviewed not later than four years after the adoption of the current proposal. This temporary derogation is similar to that negotiated for the Maltese language.