92002E0063

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0063/02

by Camilo Nogueira Román (Verts/ALE) to the Council

(25 January 2002)

Subject: The Spanish presidency and the working languages of the EU

The entry of new countries into the EU, the official languages of which will be recognised on an equal footing with the current ones in the Union of fifteen countries, may accentuate the trend whereby, although the languages of all the Member States are recognised, some of them acquire the status of preferred working languages, as is currently the case for French and English.

Certain countries want their language to have the same recognition as English or French, the argument being based on the number of people speaking that language in the EU. However, in the EU there are languages, such as Spanish or Portuguese Galician, one of the languages of the Spain, belongs to the same family spoken by hundreds of millions of people on four continents, and therefore of a universal nature, which must be taken into account in settling this debate.

It would be absurd if the EU, which must play a fundamental political and economic role in the world, should underestimate the value of these two languages as preferred working languages, when, out of all the languages which are or are going to be the official languages of the EU, they are among the three most spoken languages in the world. What will the Spanish presidency's position on this issue be?

Reply

(13 May 2002)

Article 290 TEC states that the rules governing the languages of the institutions of the Community shall be determined by the Council, acting unanimously. The position of the Council on this issue is set out in its Regulation No 1 (EU) of 1958, as subsequently amended on the accession of new Member States, which states that there are currently eleven official working languages of the Community.