EU: EU foreign ministers failed to give a positive signal to the Government yesterday over making the Irish language the 21st official language of the EU.
The issue was raised briefly yesterday at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels but no decision was made and it will now go back to EU ambassadors to be discussed further. It will be up to the next EU presidency, under Luxembourg, to see when it will be put on the table again.
Ireland is not alone in its wish to see the official EU language list changed. Spain is also pushing for greater recognition at EU level for four languages: Catalan, Basque, Galician and Valencian.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Dermot Ahern, told his colleagues there was strong political and public support for the proposal in Ireland and stressed the fact that the proposal is relatively limited.
Speaking after the meeting Mr Ahern said: "We have to hasten slowly in relation to this proposal . . . we just have to wait and see how things develop." He added that, "there is generally support" for Ireland's initiative but stressed it is something that has to be agreed by all 25 member-states.
Although nobody spoke out against the proposal, sources say France is reluctant to see it move further because it could open the door to claims for EU recognition for regional languages such as Breton and Corsican. In the Baltic countries, similar claims by the Russian-speaking minorities could also be sparked off.
At the moment, Irish has treaty language status in the EU. This means that all EU treaties are translated into Irish and citizens may write to the EU institutions in Irish and expect a reply in the same language. Under the Government's proposals, the language would have an official but limited status. For a transition period of four years, legislative acts adopted jointly by the Council and Parliament would be translated into Irish.
Ireland will continue to push the question, its main argument being that Irish is a national language, whereas Spain is calling for recognition of regional languages.