What are the main obstacles for Catalan to be official in Europe?

BrusselsThe Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, has a clear answer. One of the "greatest obstacles" to making Catalan, Basque, and Galician official in the European Union is his Italian counterpart, Antonio Tajani. Or, put another way, the pressure that the Spanish PP exerts on its partners. This is what he stated in a speech this Wednesday at the plenary session of Congress, in which he accused Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party of influencing the European People's Party to "halt" this initiative. "The gentleman from Italy whom you invite to your congresses and whom Feijóo is always hugging is one of the biggest obstacles to these languages not yet being official –he asserted–. Have you reproached him for doing this? I have".

The debate over the official status of Catalan returns to Brussels this week. Spain has requested to include the matter on the agenda of this Tuesday's EU General Affairs Council and, as is usual, it has been accepted. But the possibilities of the proposal being unblocked in the short term are almost nil. In fact, the debate on the initiative promoted by Moncloa has been introduced into the agenda under the category of requests and questions (Any other business), a format reserved for last-minute topics or informal presentations that were not initially foreseen. In practice, this means that the issue will not be submitted to a vote nor will any binding decision be taken. The Sánchez executive will limit itself to presenting its vision to the rest of the partners.

Mind you, Moncloa is arriving at the meeting with a new argument up its sleeve. It wants to link the recognition of Catalan, Basque, and Galician to the future accession process of new member states. The thesis that the Secretary of State for the EU, Fernando Sampedro, will defend is simple: before the EU opens up to incorporating the official languages of potential new member states, it must address the pending files of the states that are already part of it. Diplomatic sources highlight the comparative grievance that it would represent if languages of candidates like Montenegrin –with barely 200,000 speakers– were to become official before Catalan, which has nearly ten million.

However, linking the official status of Catalan to the negotiation process of candidate countries to join the European bloc allows the Spanish executive to gain time. According to estimates by the community institutions themselves, the accession of Montenegro or Albania, the countries most advanced in the processes to enter the EU, is not expected before 2028.

This will be the eighth time that Pedro Sánchez's executive has proposed debating the official status of co-official languages in the EU, one of the commitments of the agreement reached between the PSOE and Junts to invest him as president in 2023. The last time the ministers formally discussed the official status of the language was in July 2025. At that moment, the Moncloa presented a redesigned document to bridge the gap with the rest of the capitals, on two fronts they saw as problematic: the economic and the legal.

On one hand, Spain offered to cover the costs associated with translation and interpretation in all community institutions. And, on the other side, it intended to avoid creating a precedent effect, as it limited the possibility of making a language official to those that were included in the state's constitution at the time it joined the EU. A clause that left out languages such as Corsican, Breton, or Frisian. All in all, the debate ended without any progress.

Reluctance persists

So, what are the real reasons for the reluctant states? From the perspective of Spanish diplomacy, the two great "ghosts" that justified the reluctance of European partners were already eliminated in the proposal presented in July 2025. This, in their view, leaves only the path defended by Minister Albares, the political pressure of the PP on its European partners.

However, the new proposal from Moncloa fails to convince all the partners, and since the measure requires unanimity among the Twenty-seven, the debate remains deadlocked. The diplomatic delegations of the member states consulted by ARA maintain the same position as last time. Among the countries that have so far expressed opposition to the official status or have raised doubts are Germany, Austria, Croatia, Italy, Sweden, the Czech Republic, and Finland, while Belgium, Hungary, Ireland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, and Cyprus have shown themselves to be rather in favor.

Some of the concerns expressed previously have to do with legal, geopolitical, or economic issues. One of the most relevant is that, according to the Council of the EU's legal services, the treaties must be changed to include Catalan, Galician, and Basque as official languages. But there are more. The Baltic countries fear that setting a precedent with non-official languages could serve as leverage for Russia to instrumentalize its minorities for the same purpose; countries like Italy or France fear that the recognition of Catalan will open Pandora's box and that groups such as the Bretons, Corsicans, or Sardinians could challenge the measure at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for discrimination. All this is added to the feeling of some European capitals of having to alter community rules for what they consider an internal political affair and to resolve the weak governability of Spain.

The processing of this initiative at the EU General Affairs Council coincides with the parliamentary negotiation window for the general state budget, which the Minister of Finance, Arcadi España, ensures it will present before the end of the year and for which it will need the support of Junts and Esquerra.