It is a victory for the Catalan separatists. Since Tuesday, Spanish deputies have been able to use Catalan, Basque or Galician in the hemicycle. “It’s a historic day (…) finally, the rights of people speaking Catalan will be respected here,” said in Catalan, before the Chamber of Deputies, Miriam Nogueras, of Carles Puigdemont’s independence party, Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia).
These three languages have co-official language status in Spain where Castilian (Spanish) is on the other hand the only official language throughout the country. This means that they are, alongside Castilian, an official language in Catalonia (north-east), the Basque Country (north) and Galicia (north-west), where they are taught at school and used in the administration and within the regional parliament.
Official languages in the EU?
Their use in plenary sessions within the Spanish Parliament is a long-standing demand of the nationalist parties in these regions. But it was obtained in mid-August by Junts in exchange for its crucial support for the election of Pedro Sánchez’s candidate to the presidency of the Spanish Parliament.
The party of the former Catalan regional president, who fled to Belgium to escape legal prosecution, also demanded that the government seek recognition of Catalan, Basque and Galician as official EU languages. A request debated on Tuesday by European ministers for European Affairs, who raised objections and called for more time to decide.