EU: European Union ambassadors have given a "cautiously positive" response to the Government's request to have Irish made an official and working language of the EU, reports Denis Staunton in Brussels
Some countries expressed concern, however, about the extra burden the move would place on the EU's linguistic services, which are already overstretched following this year's accession of 10 new member-states.
Spain said that its Foreign Minister, Mr Angelos Moratinos, will next month make a formal proposal to have a number of languages used in his country, including Catalan and Basque, given greater recognition within the EU.
Ireland's Permanent Representative to the EU, Ms Anne Anderson, told yesterday's meeting of EU ambassadors that the Government sought to close an anomaly whereby Irish is the only EU "treaty language" that is not also an official and working language.
She outlined changes in the position of the language in Ireland since 1973, when the State joined the EU, including the introduction of Radio na Gaeltachta and TG4, as well as the Language Act.
Ms Anderson said that the Government wanted to take a pragmatic approach, balancing the wish to achieve proper recognition and validation for Irish with the need to avoid unnecessarily overburdening the EU's linguistic services.
The Government's proposal would give Irish the status of an official and working language but would not require the EU to translate all legislative proposals into Irish. For a transitional period of at least four years, only legislation adopted jointly by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament would be translated into Irish.
After four years, a review would consider if other documents, such as regulations, directives and decisions adopted by the Council and judgments of the European Court of Justice, should also be translated.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Ahern, said that the Government had sought in recent months to identify the issues arising from a changed status for Irish in the EU.
"This proposal, if agreed by the member-states, would represent a significant positive and practical step forward for the Irish language in the EU," he said.
The Government's proposal is similar to an arrangement agreed for Maltese, which is an official and working language of the EU but, because of a shortage of translators and interpreters, is used in a limited number of contexts.
Mr Seán Ó Neachtain is the only native Irish speaker in the European Parliament, although Mr Proinsias De Rossa is a fluent speaker and some other MEPs occasionally introduce short passages of Irish in their speeches.
The EU spends more than €1.2 billion each year on translation and interpretation into 20 languages. The Commission alone translates more than 100,000 pages of official documents into each language every year.
The restricted regime requested for Irish would require only about 2,000 pages to be translated each year and interpreters would probably be engaged on a freelance basis for the few occasions on which Irish would be used at meetings.