March 2005

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STEP FORWARD FOR SPANISH IN EUROPE BUT STEP BACK FOR CATALAN, BASQUE AND GALICIAN IN SPAIN

March 2005 – The official use of Spanish is definitely secured in the institutions both in the EU and in Spain while Spain’s other official languages still have a long and hard road to hoe before they are treated in equal terms with Spanish. While Spanish officials invoked linguistic rights when it came to defending with strong protests the translation services into Spanish in the European Commission, they do not prove to be so zealous when it comes to defending the right to use the Catalan, Basque and Galician languages in the Spanish Lower Chamber.

As regards the controversy in the European Commission, it all started when the newly appointed Commission decided to drop Spanish and Italian as working languages during the news conferences in the press room and to use only English, French and German, in order to reduce translation costs and gain efficiency. The result was a diplomatic row, with the Italian and Spanish Governments writing protest letters to José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission. There were also demands from the Spanish and Italian journalists for translation services in their languages and the atmosphere in the press room grew tense. The problem even transferred to other European institutions, such as the Parliament, where some Italian members threatened to go on strike if speeches or documents were not translated into Italian, and the Council, where Spain vetoed a discussion because the documents to be discussed had not been translated into Spanish. All this howl of protest led the Commission spokeswoman François Le Bail to make a solomonic decision: from now on the press conferences made by the commissioners will be translated only into the six official languages used in the Council of Ministers, i.e. English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Dutch, plus Polish, as a gesture for the new EU eastern Member States.

According to the Spanish ambassador in the EU Carlos Bastarreche, this controversy will not hinder the chances of Galician, Basque and Catalan to have official recognition in the EU. For the moment, the ambassadors of all 25 Member States decided in a meeting held on 10 March to postpone the decision on this issue until the summer.

As regards the claims for the use of Catalan, Basque and Galician in the Spanish Lower House (Congress of Deputies), it is not yet clear whether they will be satisfied. While a reform of the chamber’s Standing Orders is currently being prepared, there is no certainty as to whether the new version will include the possibility to speak in Catalan, Basque and Galician in the plenary sessions. Moreover, there has been some tension in the Lower House in the last weeks regarding this issue, as the president of the chamber, Manuel Marín, has not allowed some Catalan and Basque members to speak briefly in their language before continuing in Spanish, as had been temporarily agreed by consensus until a final arrangement is included in the new Standing Orders. However, the two main parties in the chamber do not show a clear support to the introduction of these three languages. While the right-wing conservatives (PP) are against it, the social democrats (PSOE) are in favour of granting such language rights only in the Senate. By contrast, the Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (PSOE) made a speech in the French National Assembly some days ago defending linguistic diversity.