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Catalan president, Salvador Illa, is fighting for Spain’s regional languages Catalan, Basque and Galician to be recognised as official EU languages.
Pushing for Catalan to become an official EU language has been one of the key goals of the President of Catalonia, Salvador Illa, during his last visit to Brussels. The language, spoken by around 10 million people in the Spanish regions of Catalonia, the Valencian Community and the Balearic Islands, Andorra and parts of France and Italy, is in a bid together with Basque and Galician to become an EU language. He believes this is a key demand for its citizens. “Giving the official status to these languages you are saying to the citizens of Catalonia, of Galicia, of the Basque country “you are part of Europe”, said Illa. The EU has now 24 official languages. All of its legal acts and treaties are translated to all of them and the plenary sessions of the European Parliament and the meetings of the European Council and the Council of the European Union are interpreted in each of the languages. For Illa “this is not a matter of translating more or less documents, it is a matter of respecting the identity of European citizens”. The decision must be approved unanimously by all 27 EU countries and is now being discussed by the European Affairs ministers. But has made small progress since Spain presented the proposal during its rotating presidency in the summer of 2023.Including three new official languages might cost around 132 million euros per year, according to a preliminary report made by the European Commission. Brussels estimates that each language would cost around 44 million euros per year, including the adaptation of documents and the hiring of interpreters and translators. If the proposal is approved, Spain has offered to pay for it. Now Catalan can be spoken in the Council of the European Union if the ministers ask for it several weeks in advance. This happened in September 2024, when Spain’s Industry minister Jordi Hereu spoke Catalan in a meeting for the first time in 20 years. At the same time, the European Parliament is looking into the possibility of all three languages being used by MEPs during plenary sessions. Political mistrustGetting the 27 member states to support Spain’s demands to make the three languages official in the EU might be difficult. The proposal was made by Pedro Sánchez’s government as a deal to get the support of pro-independence parties, especially former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont’s Junts per Catalunya. But this is rising eyebrows in several EU countries, who see it as a political manoeuvre by Sánchez. “This was a demand of this political party, but is a shared demand of lots of people not only from Catalonia…, in the Basque country, in Galicia…”, said Illa. “This is not, let’s say, a political issue, or a political demand. I would put it from another angle. This is a fair measure from a linguistic point of view. There are 20 million citizens that have these official languages”.Closing the independence pathFor Illa, this is his second visit to Brussels since he was sworn in as president of Catalonia six months ago. The socialist politician has made of Brussels one of his priorities, choosing Jaume Duch, the former spokesperson of the European Parliament, as his minister of European Union and Foreign Affairs.One of his goals is to restart completely the relations between Catalonia and the European Union. “That’s our aspiration I think we are going to achieve it. We want to be fully involved in the European construction, in the European project, in a moment, in a fast-changing world that gives no other way of strengthening European project”, said Illa.His trip last week included a meeting with the president of the European Council, António Costa, and the vicepresident of the European Commission, Teresa Ribera. But he is not the first one who tries to break the blockage that Catalonia faced during the decade that included a pro-independence referendum, the so-called Procés.Former Catalan president and pro-independence leader, Pere Aragonès, already met with some members of the European Commission in 2022, a first for a Catalan leader in several years. Now, for the first time in more than 10 years, Catalonia has a president against the independence. “I respect all the political projects, but my view is that in this fast changing world, we need to strengthen the things that unite us and not highlight the things that separate us”, said Illa. You can listen to the whole interview in our podcast “Radio Schuman”.
