The Government sees "unthinkable" an expansion of the EU without first recognizing Catalan.

Modifying the linguistic regime of the European Union is legally complex because the treatment of languages is largely “shielded” in the Treaties and in rules that require unanimity of the States. Therefore, the parliamentary room for maneuver is limited and, in practice, it is articulated on two levels: that of the Treaties and that of the derived regulations (mainly a Council regulation).

1. Legal basis: who decides on the languages of the EU

The starting point is Article 342 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU), which establishes that the linguistic regime of the institutions is set by:

• Unanimity of the Council (ministers of the 27 Member States).
• Regulations that require only consultation with the European Parliament, not its co-decision.

Furthermore, the recognition of a language as an official and working language of the Union is linked to Article 55 of the Treaty on European Union, which lists the authentic languages of the Treaties. Incorporating a new language into that list requires, in principle, a reform of the Treaties, with the consequent role of national parliaments.

2. Route 1: Treaty reform (structural change of the linguistic regime)

If what is intended is a fundamental change — for example, redefining the set of official languages of the EU or introducing new general rules — the ordinary route would be the revision of the Treaties. The parliamentary procedure, summarized, is as follows:

• Revision initiative: proposals to reform the Treaty can be submitted by the Government of any Member State, the European Parliament, or the European Commission. Here the European Parliament already comes into play, as it can be a proposer.
• Calling a Convention or Intergovernmental Conference: the European Council decides, after consulting the European Parliament and the Commission, whether to convene a Convention to prepare the reform project, or to proceed directly to an Intergovernmental Conference of the Member States.
• Negotiation among governments: at the Intergovernmental Conference, the text amending the Treaties is drafted, which would include the revised linguistic provisions.
• Participation of the European Parliament: the European Parliament must give its approval to the reform (consultation alone is not enough). That is, it votes in plenary whether or not it supports the text agreed by the governments.
• Ratification by national parliaments: the new Treaty or amending Protocol only enters into force if ratified by all Member States according to their internal constitutional procedures, usually through:
  • Approval by the national legislative chambers.
  • In some countries, a possible referendum if the Constitution so requires.

In summary, any profound modification of the linguistic regime implies a triple parliamentary filter: European Parliament, national parliaments, and, where applicable, the citizenry via referendum.

3. Route 2: Modification of derived regulations (linguistic regime of the institutions)

Besides the “hard core” of the Treaties, the linguistic regime is specified in a Council Regulation that sets the languages used by the institutions and the rules of use (document translation, interpretation in debates, etc.).

If one wants to modify that regulation — for example, to allow specific uses of a language not listed in the Treaties or to adjust translation practice — the procedure is:

• Proposal normally from the European Commission or a Member State.
• Decision by the Council by unanimity, again according to Article 342 TFEU.
• Consultation of the European Parliament: the Council is obliged to seek the opinion of the Parliament before adopting the regulation, but is not legally bound to follow it.

In this route, the only parliamentary body with a formal role is the European Parliament in the consultation phase. National parliaments may express political opinions (resolutions, mandates to their governments, executive oversight), but do not intervene as ratifiers, because there is no Treaty reform.

4. Role of national parliaments in practice

Although EU law does not require their vote to change the linguistic regulation, many States submit this type of decision to internal parliamentary control:

• Debate in European or foreign affairs committees.
• Resolutions that set the Government’s position before the Council.
• Appearances by the competent minister to explain the negotiation.

This is not a European requirement, but a demand of each country’s own constitutional order to control how its Government votes in the Council.

5. Summary

In conclusion, to modify the linguistic regime of the EU there are two levels: if it is about altering the official languages of the Treaties, the path is the reform of the Treaties, with decisive intervention of the European Parliament and subsequent ratification by all national parliaments. If it is an adaptation of the institutional linguistic regime within the current framework, a Council Regulation approved unanimously suffices, after consultation with the European Parliament and with the controls imposed by each national parliament over its own Government.

The powers of the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Spain are determined, in a combined manner, by the general regulations on the Government and by the royal decrees that organize the ministerial departments. Legally, it is useful to distinguish between the general powers that any minister has and the specific material powers associated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation.

1. General powers of every minister (Law 50/1997, on the Government)

Law 50/1997, of November 27, on the Government, establishes the basic statute of ministers. In particular, the provision regulating ministers as heads of their departments states that:

• They are heads of a ministerial department, and have competence and responsibility in the specific sphere of their action.
• They are responsible for developing the Government’s action within their department, in accordance with the agreements of the Council of Ministers and the guidelines of the Prime Minister.
• They exercise regulatory power in matters pertaining to their department, through ministerial orders and other provisions of lower rank than royal decrees.
• They exercise all other powers attributed to them by sectoral laws, government organization and functioning rules, and other applicable provisions.
• Where appropriate, they countersign the acts of the King that fall within their material competence, in accordance with the Constitution.

These general powers apply to the Minister of Foreign Affairs just like to the other ministers: he politically directs his department, is jointly responsible as a member of the Government, and is subject to parliamentary and judicial control of his acts.

2. Organizational framework of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Beyond the Government Law, the specific powers are detailed in two types of rules:

• The royal decree restructuring ministerial departments, which determines the very existence of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its full name, and its insertion within the Government as a whole.
• The royal decree developing the basic organic structure of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, which distributes functions among the minister himself, the secretariats of state, the Undersecretariat, general directorates, embassies, and other dependent bodies.

These rules, currently in force and successively modified in recent years, delimit the material areas that make up the State’s external action and over which the minister holds political direction and responsibility.

3. Specific powers of the Minister of Foreign Affairs

From this general framework, the administrative organization legislation attributes to the holder of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation a set of material powers that, synthetically, can be grouped into the following blocks:

• Direction of the State’s foreign policy: promotion, coordination, and execution of the Government’s foreign policy in its various bilateral, regional, and multilateral aspects, in coherence with the guidelines set by the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers.
• Diplomatic relations and external representation: direction of the State’s External Service; relations with third States and international organizations; supervision of embassies, permanent missions, and consulates, and, in general, of the offices abroad dependent on the department.
• Spain’s action in the European Union: coordination of the Spanish position in the institutions of the European Union, in close interaction with the Presidency of the Government and the ministries competent by reason of subject matter; participation in the design of European policy and in the negotiation of files relevant to external action.
• Treaties and other international agreements: preparation, negotiation, within its material scope, of treaties and international agreements; processing of their signature and, when appropriate, their provisional application, always within the framework that the Constitution and laws reserve for the Government and the General Courts.
• Protection of Spaniards abroad: direction of consular policy and protection and assistance to Spanish natural and legal persons outside the national territory, including the consular network and crisis attention mechanisms.
• International cooperation for development and humanitarian policy: general guidance of Spain’s cooperation and global solidarity policy, through, among other instruments, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation and the corresponding sectoral conferences.
• Participation in collegiate bodies of external action: intervention in the Foreign Policy Council and other interministerial coordination bodies linked to external action, international security, or Spain’s projection in the world.
• Internal organization of the department: proposal to the Council of Ministers for the creation, modification, and suppression of the ministry’s management bodies; approval of instructions, circulars, and internal guidelines to ensure the coordinated functioning of the external service.

In summary, according to current legislation the Minister of Foreign Affairs shares the generic functions of every Government member defined by Law 50/1997 (political direction of his scope, regulatory power, responsibility before the Courts), and also assumes the political and administrative direction of the State’s external action, coordination of European policy, development cooperation, and oversight of the external service and consular protection, in the specific terms established by the royal decrees of restructuring and basic organic structure of the ministry.

The European Union does not have a detailed “codified procedure” to incorporate new official languages, but it does establish a series of clear legal requirements in the Treaties and in derived law. In practice, making a language official in the EU requires a combination of substantive legal requirements and unanimous political decisions by the Member States.

1. Main legal basis

• Article 55 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU): establishes in which languages the Treaties are authentic. Any extension of the list of authentic languages of the Treaties requires amendment of the Treaties themselves or, at least, a Council decision by unanimity recognizing new authentic linguistic versions.
• Article 342 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU): provides that the linguistic regime of the Union’s institutions is established by the Council, unanimously, through regulations, after consulting the European Parliament.
• Council Regulation No. 1/1958 (Linguistic Regulation): sets the list of official and working languages of the institutions. Each time a new official language of the EU has been incorporated (for example, with an enlargement), it has been done by amending this Regulation by unanimous Council agreement.

Consequently, the central legal requirement is that the official status of a language in the institutions requires modifying or complementing Regulation 1/1958 and, where appropriate, adapting the regime of authentic languages of the Treaties, always by unanimity of the Member States in the Council.

2. Substantive requirements to consider a language

The Treaties do not contain a closed list of linguistic criteria, but from practice and institutional interpretation several key elements emerge:

• Official language of a Member State: the EU’s starting point is that languages that can be official of the Union are, in principle, official (or co-official) languages in the legal system of the Member State proposing it. This implies that the language is recognized by the Constitution or basic legislation of that State.
• Formal request from the Member State: the initiative corresponds to the State or States whose population uses that language. A formal petition to the Council must be submitted to modify the linguistic regime, assuming it is a national political and legal priority.
• Capacity for normalization and standardization: for a language to function as an official EU language, it requires a clear linguistic standard, sufficient legal and administrative terminology, and academic or institutional structures that can support its development in highly specialized technical contexts.
• Legal certainty and interpretative security: the institutions must be able to guarantee that legal texts in that language have the same reliability as in others. This requires translators, reviewers, terminologists, and quality control mechanisms.

3. Additional procedural and material requirements

Besides the legal basis, there are several aspects that, without being exhaustively described in a single rule, function in practice as requirements:

• Unanimity of the Council: any Member State can veto the inclusion of a new official language, so the requirement is not only legal but also of complete political consensus among the 27 (or however many there are at each moment).
• Budgetary and organizational impact analysis: incorporating an official language implies translating the entire EU body of law, guaranteeing interpretation in meetings, adapting IT systems, selecting linguistic staff, etc. This is usually accompanied by an examination of costs and organizational feasibility.
• Specific decisions by institution: although Regulation 1/1958 sets the common framework, each institution (Parliament, Council, Commission, Court of Justice, etc.) adopts internal rules on how it applies the linguistic regime (for example, which languages are used as working languages in daily administration). Official status opens the door, but concrete application is detailed in internal regulations.

4. Difference between full official status and limited arrangements

It is important to distinguish between:

• Official languages of the EU: those listed in Regulation 1/1958. They enjoy full rights to have legislation and fundamental documents published in them, and can be used before the institutions with a guarantee of response in the same language.
• Administrative agreements for non-official EU languages: some languages with internal recognition in a Member State may be subject to specific and limited agreements (for example, the possibility of using that language in certain communications or specific sessions), without becoming an official language of the Union. These arrangements are typically made through Council or other institutional agreements, but do not modify the official list of Regulation 1/1958.

In summary, for a new language to be official in the EU institutions it requires: that it be an official language of at least one Member State, that there be a formal request from that State, that the Council unanimously adopt a modification of the linguistic regime (Regulation 1/1958 and, where appropriate, the linguistic status of the Treaties), and that the practical and financial capacity to fully integrate it into institutional functioning be demonstrated.