The EU postpones the official status of Catalan: tension between Germany and Spain

BrusselsThe seventh time won't be the charm either. The European Union has once again postponed the vote on the official status of Catalan, Galician, and Basque, marking the seventh time Spain has brought this initiative to the EU General Affairs Council. According to diplomatic sources told ARA, a large portion of the Member States remain reluctant to the initiative, and at least ten countries intervened in the meeting to openly express their legal and economic doubts about the proposal. The most hawkish Member State was once again the representative of Germany, and several sources present in the meeting room described the conversation between the German and Spanish representatives as tense. "It wasn't dramatic, but there was tension," they noted.

However, many of the countries that have always been rather supportive have also asked for more time to thoroughly study and discuss Spain's proposal. Thus, although Moncloa assures that it has allayed the legal and economic doubts of the rest of the European partners, the reality is that the majority continue to fear the potential consequences of the Catalan Countries' native language being recognized within the EU as a whole.

Diplomatic sources assure that more than half of the 27 representatives of the member states spoke at the meeting and "a good number of these countries expressed legal doubts." In fact, the discussion in the General Affairs Council (GAC) this Friday lasted around an hour, considerably longer than in the six previous meetings in which the official status of Catalan has been discussed.

In this regard, Poland, Austria, and, among other countries, Finland, have openly emphasized that they have legal doubts about the initiative, and it has been confirmed that this is one of the main stumbling blocks of the initiative. A fear that has been spreading among European partners after, as ARA learned, the EU Council's legal services asserted that a reform of the treaties is necessary to include the three languages. However, the Spanish Secretary of State for the EU, Fernando Sampedro, insisted in statements to the media that the "treaties are very clear" and that, therefore, there would be no need to modify them.

As for the countries that are in favor, they generally also ask for more time to discuss the proposal and want more information. "Traditions are important, but now is really, really not the time," summarized Xavier Bettel, Foreign Minister of Luxembourg, a country in favor of the initiative. In contrast, the Luxembourg representative has prioritized discussing issues related to the war in Ukraine and Gaza in the EU Council, which has focused mainly on discussing the next European budgets, with Spain's proposal being completely relegated to the background.

Thus, diplomatic sources explain to this newspaper that the situation has not changed much since the last meeting where it was discussed, when at least seven member states explicitly expressed their opposition: Germany, Italy, Croatia, Austria, Sweden, Finland, and the Czech Republic. As for France, its position was so ambiguous that some sources believe it was in favor, while others were against.

Another fear among many Member States is that the initiative's approval will revive the demands of minority or minority-controlled linguistic communities in their respective territories. Moreover, some EU partners also have doubts about the legal possibility of Spain assuming all the translation and interpretation costs for these languages, as promised by the Moncloa.

However, the Spanish government maintains that it has managed to allay all legal and economic doubts and attributes the reluctance of some Member States to political motives on the part of some European governments. Thus, it has accused some countries of unnecessarily "hijacking" and "delaying" the processing of the proposal and has offered to provide more information to reluctant Member States and to request further reports on the initiative's potential consequences from the European Commission and the EU Council. In fact, the Spanish government has long accused the People's Party (PP) of taking advantage of the influence of the conservative political family at the European level, which has the most governments in the bloc, to hinder the official status of Catalan, Galician, and Basque in the European Union.