BRUSSELS — Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez suffered a major political setback in the EU’s General Affairs Council on Tuesday, where national representatives declined to back his proposal to add Catalan, Basque and Galician to the bloc’s list of official languages.
The loss could imperil Sánchez’s ability to pass a fresh budget bill and meet NATO’s demands for increased defense spending.
In exchange for key support needed to form a new minority government, in 2023 Sánchez promised the Catalan separatist Junts party that he would get Catalan, Basque and Galician added to the list of the bloc’s 24 official languages.
To that end, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares has spent nearly two years attempting to secure the unanimous support needed to pass the measure, considered essential for ensuring political stability in Madrid.
But EU countries have been skeptical about the proposal from the start, and ultimately passed on Madrid’s bid. The measure was not rejected outright; as is custom when unanimous support is lacking within the GAC, national representatives instead opted to postpone voting on the proposal indefinitely. According to officials attending the closed-door meeting, 10 countries backed a motion to remove the proposal from the voting agenda.
The GAC’s decision to pass on the linguistic recognition bid creates a headache for Sánchez, whose minority government needs the support of the Junts party in order to pass legislation.
A Junts party official granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations conceded that Madrid had made a real effort to make the languages official at the EU level and said Spanish diplomats had collaborated in good faith during the years-long lobbying blitz.
But the official declined to say if Junts would still hold Sánchez accountable for failing to comply with one of the commitments made in the support agreement forged in 2023. The prime minister has yet to pass a budget during his current term and would need the Catalan separatists’ backing to do so.
Spain is NATO’s lowest defense spender, setting aside just 1.28 percent of its GDP on the military in 2024 — well below the alliance’s 2 percent target and a fraction of the 5 percent demanded by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Cross-bloc skepticism
Spain’s linguistic recognition bid has long raised eyebrows — for a number of reasons.
Making Catalan, Basque and Galician official within the institutions would require the translation of all EU laws, proposals and decisions — past, present and future — into those languages and cost millions of euros in additional translation and interpretation fees. Moreover, the move could lead other linguistic minorities — like Breton or Corsican speakers in France, or Russian-speaking communities in the Baltic states — to demand similar recognition.
After at least seven countries expressed strong doubts about the proposal during last week’s meeting of the bloc’s ambassadors, Spanish diplomats produced draft regulation tailored to address those concerns.
The text, which was submitted to the GAC on Tuesday, sought to pacify member countries concerned about cash by explicitly committing Spain to bear all costs that could derive from officially recognizing the languages at the EU level. It also tackled worries about potential copycat bids by emphasizing that Spain’s proposal was unique because Catalan, Basque and Galician’s have co-official status at the national level.
The Junts official said the draft regulation had been tailored to assuage French concerns and simultaneously reinforce the Baltic’s opposition to ever having Russian made official at the EU level. The draft regulation made a point of noting that, unlike other tongues, Spain’s co-official languages are enshrined in Spain’s constitution and used as working languages in its parliament and civil administration.
But national representatives remained unconvinced, especially with regard to the financial implications of the move. The translation expenses involving the 24 languages the bloc currently recognizes as official are covered with cash from the EU’s seven-year budget — Spain’s offer to foot the bill for costs related to recognizing Catalan, Basque and Galician is unprecedented.
EU officials have previously expressed doubts about how legally binding that commitment would be, and whether future governments in Madrid would be willing, or obliged, to allocate millions of euros for that purpose indefinitely.
Although no country was keen to enter into a direct confrontation with Sánchez over the issue, the skepticism regarding the ill-fated proposal was evident ahead of the GAC meeting.
Croatian Secretary of State for Europe Andreja Metelko-Zgombić said she “appreciated” Spain’s lobbying efforts, but still believed the proposal required closer scrutiny. “We would really like to learn a little bit more about the legal and financial implications,” she added.
Austrian European Affairs Minister Claudia Plakolm and her Swedish counterpart, Jessica Rosencrantz, expressed similar doubts about the legality of the proposal. Finnish European Affairs Minister Joakim Strand was more direct, citing “concerns listed by the Council’s legal services” to assert that the bid was not yet “mature” enough to be voted on.
In Madrid, Education Minister and Government Spokesperson Pilar Alegría said Spain would continue lobbying the bloc’s members and vowed to bring the proposal up for a vote again in the future.
“We will fulfill our commitment to have our country’s pluri-linguistic reality recognized in Europe,” she said.
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