Aanvraag Ierland om van het Gaelic een officiële EU-taal te maken (en) - Main contents

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Dublin has applied for Irish to become an official language of the European Union.

Ireland's ambassador Anne Anderson formally tabled a proposal at a meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday (24 November).

The proposal stops short of asking that all documents be translated into Irish.

"We recognise that there is a problem with the linguistic services - that they are overworked", said an Irish diplomat.

Instead, for a temporary period of four years, Irish would have a status similar to that of Maltese which means that while joint regulations adopted by the Council and Parliament would be translated into Irish, rulings from the European Court of Justice would not.

Similarly, there would be interpretation at ministerial level but not for working groups in the Council or for committees in the European Parliament.

Ireland's main argument for putting forward the proposal was that Irish is the only 'treaty' language (treaties are translated into Irish and citizens can write to EU institutions in the language and expect a reply in Irish) that is not an official language.

"We wanted to end this sui generis situation", said the Irish diplomat.

"This proposal, if agreed by the Member States, would represent a significant positive and practical step forward for the Irish language in the EU", said Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern on Wednesday.

Generally positive reactions

According to sources, reactions from other member states were generally positive. Only Italy raised the point about the EU already being stretched to the limit with its 20 official languages.

Ireland's application, which has to be formally approved by all 25 member states before it can go into effect, is expected to strongly influence a similar debate in Spain.

There is large political pressure in Spain to have regional languages such as Catalan, Basque and Galician recognised at the EU level - during the discussion the Spanish ambassador alluded to the difficult domestic situation.

A Spanish diplomat said that Madrid is working on a "memorandum" to see what "practical arrangements" would have to be made to see these languages recognised at EU level.

Spain is expected to raise the matter at the next meeting of EU foreign ministers mid-December.

For its part, Ireland is hoping to move "as fast as possible" to see Irish as an official EU language.