EU Postpones Spain Language Decision Again

Almost two years after the first formal petition, Spain once again pushed for its three co-official languages, Catalan, Basque, and Galician, to be added as official languages within the European Union (EU). On May 27, 2025, the EU postponed any decision on the matter for a second time.

The first time the proposal was rejected was in September 2023, a little over a month after the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, requested for the Council of the European Union to include the languages. 

At the time, Spain presided over the EU government, which communicated that it had discussed the matter but needed more information, and deferred making a decision on whether to bring it to a vote.

This time, with Poland in the presidency, the EU has once again postponed any decision on the matter after at least ten countries, including Finland, Italy, and Germany, threatened to reject the proposal if it was brought to a vote. Sweden and other countries had opposed the 2023 proposal. Furthermore, a change in language policy at the EU requires a unanimous vote by all 27 EU State Members.

Initially, Albares proposed rolling out Catalan first and told Member States that Spain was willing to cover the costs of bringing all three languages into the EU (i.e., projected document translation costs).

A key piece of Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s political campaign to remain in power was his commitment to the Junts Catalan party in 2023 to continue pressing the EU on co-official language inclusion in exchange for support at the polls.

According to the Spanish newspaper “El Diario,” Spain’s government spokesperson Pilar Alegría stated that Spain accepts the request to continue dialoguing and acknowledged that the proposal lacks enough support for the initiative to go forward.