The 12 times Catalan has been spoken in the EU this legislative term (even though it is not official)

BarcelonaIn 2025, Catalan will no longer be an official language in the European Union. while the Spanish government mobilizes its diplomacy to try to find the support it currently lacks. While awaiting official recognition, which requires unanimity from all member states, both the central government and the regional government have tried to promote Catalan within European institutions. This is partly to appease Junts, which identifies this issue as a priority to consider returning to the negotiating table with the PSOE, now dissolved. Official status would mean that any citizen could address European institutions in Catalan, that it would be included in cultural promotion programs, and that legislation would also be published in that language. But, until this happens, current regulations already facilitate its use in both the Committee of the Regions and the Council of the EU, when there is the political will to do so.

This Wednesday, the Minister of Foreign Action, Jaume Duch, is scheduled to speak in Catalan from the European Parliament building to defend a measure to give European regions more decision-making power over cooperation funds. This is an opinion promoted by the Catalan Government through the European Committee of the Regions, the first in more than five years, according to sources from the Ministry of Foreign Action. This will be the twelfth time, during the Catalan legislature, that a Catalan or Spanish leader has spoken in Catalan in one of the European Union institutions. What were the previous instances?

Salvador Illa

The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, made his debut speaking in Catalan at the Committee of the Regions in November 2024, during a session on the DANA storm and to celebrate the 30th anniversary of this body, closely linked to former President Pasqual Maragall, who chaired it between 1995 and 1998. Executives sent their Foreign Action Ministers. In the previous legislature, for example, then-Minister Meritxell Serret had spoken in Catalan. Internationally, according to sources from the office of former President Pere Aragonès, the Republican leader did use Catalan at meetings of the Euroregion, the Mediterranean Macroregion, and at the UN headquarters in Switzerland. The last time Illa spoke in Catalan in the EU was in February of this year, also at the Committee of the Regions, to discuss cohesion policies.

The Ministers

Not counting Wednesday's session, Duch has spoken twice in Catalan at the Committee of the Regions: the first time in May, during the debate on Moldova's possible accession to the EU, and the second time in October, in a debate on the role of the regions in the European budget. Catalan has also been heard at the Council of Ministers of the European Union, thanks to the Catalan Ministers of Education, Esther Niubó, and Culture, Sònia Hernández. Regulations allow regional ministers to speak at this forum, with the endorsement of their respective member states.

A minister from the PSC and one from Sumar

While Pasqual Maragall was the first president of the Generalitat to speak in Catalan at the Committee of the Regions, the first minister to do so at the Council of the EU was José Montilla, then Minister of Industry, the result of an agreement between European institutions and the Spanish government to enable this possibility. He was the first to do so and, until a year ago, also the only one. The Minister of Industry, Jordi Hereu, revived the tradition. In September 2024, at a ministerial meeting on competitiveness in Brussels. From Sumar, the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, spoke in Catalan in November during a debate on cultural policies. The Deputy Ambassador of Spain to the EU, Oriol Escalas, also spoke in Catalan at a Council of Ministers meeting on libraries.

In the Economic and Social Committee

The possibility of speaking in Catalan at the European Economic and Social Committee is also a new development this year. This committee includes trade unions, employers' associations, and other civil society groups, which, since April of this year, have been able to speak in the co-official languages. The PSOE's Federal Secretary for Memory, Democracy, and Secularism, Manuel García Salgado, and the businessman Josep Puxeu, president of Ecoembes, have already spoken in Catalan. Furthermore, in 2025, Catalan has been incorporated as a subject of instruction in the European Schools. These are public schools located in EU countries where 20,000 students, aged 4 to 18, study. They are the children of EU staff.