The official status of Catalan, Galician and Basque Country in the EU will in principle continue to exist. in the freezer. Hungary, the country responsible for assuming the rotating presidency of the Council next semester and therefore for organizing the internal work of the 27, has no prospect of resuming the case, which has been practically put on hold . stand-by after Spain handed over the baton to Belgium.
“There is no intention,” Hungarian Ambassador to the EU Bálint Ódor replied when asked whether he plans to put the issue on the agenda of future General Affairs Council meetings, even for a vote. What he has pointed out is that “if there is a need to debate it,” it will be placed on the agenda.
Spain raised the official status of these three languages in the EU in August as a result of negotiations with pro-independence forces over the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez. Making Catalan official in the EU was one of the commitments. From there he introduced it in all meetings of those responsible for European Affairs, despite the fact that several countries showed their reluctance to take that step, which requires the unanimity of the 27.
One of the doubts that some countries have expressed is the need to present a report on the legal and economic implications of making these three official languages. And what they hope is that a clearer proposal will be put on the table from Spain, but that is not there yet. The European Commission has prepared a preliminary report on the costs amounted to 132 million annually make the three languages official. Spain has always said it would cover the costs.
The last thing that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, presented was a document expressing the uniqueness of the Spanish official languages that would be included in the EU catalogue. In addition to the fact that they are languages that are constitutionally recognized and already spoken in the national parliament, the government states that they a matter of “national identity”. With these arguments, the government wants to convince the European partners that there will not later be a chain reaction of other minority languages to claim official status in the EU.
But there have been no moves since March and Hungary's intention is to leave the matter in the drawer, waiting for another move from Spain.