EU countries resist Spain on making Catalan official language
At least seven capitals have raised concerns over the costs and political implications of the move, which Sánchez links to defense spending.
The rejection is bad for European integration and the idea of a Europe of the Regions.
Languages could have a Opt-in translation fund that enables them as official language on EU level.
Also, WTF France.
Language and ethnicity go hand in hand in hand. If you hear people bitching about languages they don’t speak, or being very proud of the language they do speak, it’s because they’re racist.
So yeah, France.
France, for instance, has a national policy against the recognition of domestic minority languages like Basque, Breton and Corsican.
Trying to give France the benefit of the doubt, but this just sounds like oppression. Is there a good reason France doesn't recognize minority languages in its territory?
France's history with minority cultures is... Not good, to say the least.
The official reason is that they want to unite the country in one language, such that people are together, not divided.
The actual reason is "lmao get rekt learn french u peasant" but in French.
What about countries where no language has a majority only a plurality? Does the French govt just assume those countries don't speak any language?
They assume that's their chance for everyone to learn French.
In exchange for key support needed to form a new minority government in 2023, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez entered into an elaborate deal with Catalan separatist lawmakers in which he committed to getting Catalan, Basque and Galician recognized as official languages of the EU.
The move requires unanimous backing of the bloc’s 27 member countries, and Spanish officials spent the past two years lobbying European capitals for support.
My understanding is that each EU member got to choose a single official language, and that the EU was obliged to support that language. Regardless of whether Spain is willing to pay in perpetuity, I have a hard time believing that Spain is going to get unanimous support, since it'd presumably create a can of worms for other governments who would then get political pressure from regional groups to fund their particular favored languages as official EU languages, and who may not want to fund that. I mean, kind of a slap in the face to various regional groups in other countries if Galician gets official EU language status, but a regional language in another EU member that has official status at a national level doesn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_official_languages_by_country_and_territory
There are a lot of official languages at the national level there.
EDIT: Maybe Spain could just commit to internally providing and funding Catalan, Basque, and Galician translations of EU official documents, as that wouldn't require sign-off from other EU members.
EDIT2: Huh. Apparently none of Catalan, Basque, and Galician actually have official language status today at the national level in Spain. If they were to become EU official languages, I think that they might be the only languages that don't have national official status, but do have EU official status.
Well, Belgium has three official languages, it just happens to share them with its neighbors. Ireland also has two, Luxembourg three, Malta two...
Also Catalan is spoken as a first language by about 4 million people. That is more than the population of the smallest 8 EU countries.
If costs are a concern one could argue that all these countries shouldn't have things translated into their national languages either. Especially when another official language could do the job. While we are at it, might as well tell the Scandinavian EU members to just learn German. The Baltic countries could just agree on one language. What is up with Slovakia, Slovenia and Czech Republic anyways. Just merge and agree on one language duuh...
Political factors are also a major consideration. France, for instance, has a national policy against the recognition of domestic minority languages like Basque, Breton and Corsican.
I think this is more of the real concern here.
While Belgium, Cyprus, Portugal, the Netherlands, Romania and Slovakia supported granting EU recognition to the Spain’s additional official languages, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany and Sweden backed Italy’s demands for “further clarity on the costs and legal implications of the move.”
Belgium needs to balance Flanders and Wallonia. Cyprus has its Greek-Turkish situation with Armenians and Maronites in the mix. I think there is some Slovakia vs. Czech Republic beef from the separation of Czechoslovakia involved...
Also Catalan is spoken as a first language by about 4 million people.
That alone does not make a good reason. There are 12 million speakers of Bavarian. Should that also become an official EU language?
Ned dass i do wos dagegn häd.
Galician gets official EU language status, but a regional language in another EU member that has official status at a national level doesn't.
At least Catalan (not sure about Galician or Basque) is a bit different from other regional languages. The education system in Spain is federated to regions, so children in Catalunya speak Catalan most of the time, Castillano/Spanish being a second language. In comparison, the French education system is monolithic, so all French children learn in French. There are a few schools who speak Breton or Catalan, but those are really minorities compared to Spain. Even from an official perspective, Breton or Catalan are not official languages of their regions in France.
EDIT: Maybe Spain could just commit to internally providing and funding Catalan, Basque, and Galician translations of EU official documents, as that wouldn’t require sign-off from other EU members.
That probably wouldn't be enough. Catalan, Basque and Galician speakers also ask for the right of their representatives to speak their languages at the European Parliament and other instances, which requires translators from those languages to all of the other languages.
Also, about the cost, the EU pays for translators for Irish, which has less than 2 millions L2 speakers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language), Latvian with 1.5 millions speakers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_language), Maltese with less than 600,000 speakers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltese_language), why wouldn't the EU pay for Catalan, which has 4 millions of L1 speakers, and 5 millions of L2 speakers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_language)?
If the argument is "yes, but they are their own country", then that's just going to give ammunition to the Catalan independentists.
The biggest issue here is that (nearly) all EU documents have to be translated into all official EU languages. It will be really expensive if spain introduces new official languages due to all the translators needed
The EU pays for translators for Irish, which has less than 2 millions L2 speakers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language), Latvian with 1.5 millions speakers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_language), Maltese with less than 600,000 speakers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltese_language).
Why wouldn't the EU pay for Catalan, which has 4 millions of L1 speakers, and 5 millions of L2 speakers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_language)?
If the argument is "yes, but they are their own country", then that's just going to give ammunition to the Catalan independentists.
What? So they could avoid other minorities making similar demands?
