MEMBER states of the European Union will today vote on a measure put forward by Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sanchez that would officially recognise Catalan, Basque and Galician as EU languages.

The contentious proposal, set to be voted on today by the General Affairs Council, has divided EU diplomats and is likely to have significant ramifications for Sanchez’s government at home.

Spanish officials have been lobbying European capitals to support the move, which would require the unanimous backing of the bloc’s 27 member countries to become law.

However, some nations – including Croatia, Czechia, Finland, France, Germany, Sweden and Italy, according to POLITICO – have expressed reservations about the proposal, fearing that official recognition could set a destabilising precedent for other minority languages.

In response, Spanish diplomats have pointed out that, unlike other minority languages such as Russian in the Balkans, Catalan, Basque and Galician all hold co-official status within the Spanish Constitution and can be used in parliament.

Other member states are worried about the financial implications of additional translation and interpretation, with the EU currently spending more than €1 billion per year translating documents into its 24 officially recognised languages.

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Madrid has sought to ease concerns by offering to stump up the cash for additional translation costs, a move that would set back the Spanish taxpayer an extra €132 million per year, according to a preliminary report from the European Commission. 

However, some EU members are skeptical as to whether the Spanish government would be willing to foot the bill indefinitely.

Others have accused diplomats of employing ‘bullying’ tactics after reports emerged that Madrid was threatening to rethink its defence commitments to some EU countries, such as Latvia where Spain has around 600 troops as part of Nato’s forward defence deployments.

The proposal to officially recognise Spain’s co-official languages is a key part of the deal struck in 2023 between Sanchez’s socialist PSOE party and Junts per Catalunya, a Catalan separatist party led by Carles Puigdemont, the controversial pro-independence leader and fugitive from Spanish justice.

In exchange for key concessions, such as the recognition of co-official languages and the divisive amnesty law for individuals involved in the illegal 2017 Catalan independence referendum, Junts per Catalunya and other regional parties, such as the left-wing, pro-independence Esquerra Republicana and Basque nationalists EH Bildu, agreed to prop up Sanchez’s coalition government in congress.

Catalan separatists are becoming increasingly irritated at the lack of progress. The EU snubbed a similar proposal in the summer of 2023, asking for more time and information to consider the proposals.

If it were to be made official, Catalan would become the 13th most widely-spoken language in the bloc with around 10 million speakers, ahead of Swedish, Irish, Danish, Finnish and even English.