The Government has hardened its stance in the battle for Catalan, Basque, and Galician to become official languages of the EU and has warned that it will not be "possible to accept" the incorporation of new languages into the community linguistic regulation derived from future enlargements if its request has not been approved beforehand.
"It is not possible for Spain to accept new official languages if the official status of Catalan, Basque, and Galician has not been approved beforehand," sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have indicated to Europa Press, after the Executive has requested to include in the next Council of General Affairs, as a miscellaneous item, the issue of "official languages and enlargement".
Spain formalized in August 2023, as a result of the agreement with Junts to secure their support for the new legislature, the request to the EU for Catalan, Basque, and Galician to be community official languages. For this to progress, the unanimous support of the Twenty-Seven is required, something that has not yet been achieved.
The Executive has reiterated to its European partners that achieving this objective is a priority, and the Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, has defended that it is solely a matter of time, convinced that they will ultimately obtain the green light.
This Thursday, the Secretary of State for the EU, Fernando Sampedro, had already pointed out this new condition linked to the enlargement process, considering that the accession of new countries would imply adding more official languages to the current 24.
Now, the consulted sources emphasize that "Spain firmly supports the enlargement process," as both Albares and the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, have reiterated, and argue that "the incorporation of new official languages into the EU is a very positive aspect given the close link between the recognition of languages and the sense of belonging of European citizens."
Pressure to accelerate the linguistic reform
In this context, the Foreign Ministry maintains that "in this context, it is urgent to advance in the reform that will allow Spanish official languages to also be official languages of the EU." For this to happen, a vote in the Council is essential, which has not occurred so far after Spain has found that it did not have the necessary unanimity to avoid the rejection of its proposal.
The Government will be able to defend its position again at the meeting on September 22, although a substantive debate is not expected. In any case, it will be the first occasion that the official status of Catalan, Basque, and Galician is formally raised since July 2025.
On that occasion, the Spanish initiative clashed with the rejection of a dozen member states, led by Germany, and there are no signs that the reluctant countries have changed their stance. In fact, last May, after a meeting between Albares and his German counterpart, the German Foreign Ministry reiterated that it maintained its doubts.
The requirement of unanimity, the great obstacle
From the beginning, the obligation to have the unanimity of the Twenty-Seven has become the main hurdle, despite the Government's attempts to clear the reservations of its partners, especially those of a legal nature and those related to the fear of creating a precedent that encourages other minority languages in the EU to claim the same status.
To dispel concerns, the Government has offered to fully assume the additional costs —which the European Commission estimates at about 132 million euros annually, using the case of Gaelic as a reference— and has put on the table a gradual application of the official status to reduce the initial burden.
Specifically, the Executive proposed to its partners in the spring of 2025 that Catalan, Basque, and Galician have partial official status from 2027, so that, starting that year, only the regulations of the Council and the European Parliament will be translated into these languages, which represents about 3% of the total legal acts of the previous legislature.
Regarding the fear of setting a precedent, the Government emphasizes that the three co-official languages are already recognized in the Constitution before Spain's accession to the EU, are used in Congress and the Senate, and the country translated treaties and a good part of European regulations into these languages years ago, conditions that would not apply to other minority languages of the member states.