Irish, Yes/ Basque, Almost

It is so extrange to see Madrid fighting for the right of Basque to be recognized by the European Union.

Yet, as bizarre as it may be, it happened, and here is the story according to the Belfast Telegraph:

The Irish language overcame Dutch objections to win recognition as an EU official language yesterday, but the next challenge facing the Irish government will be to provide trained interpreters and translators.

It means that Irish will finally become a working language of the EU more than 30 years after the country first joined.

Although the European taxpayer must pay for the cost of Irish, the Spanish government will pay for the more limited rights afforded to Basque, Catalan and Galician.

The deal to get agreement on Irish was finalised amid a growing mood in the Netherlands and elsewhere to curb all expansion of EU costs following the rejection of the constitutional treaty in the Netherlands two weeks ago.

To be honest, on top of the Dutch refusal, the three continental languages had to face Ireland's own refusal, try to explain that one.

Berria provides more information:

The Basque Language can be used in European institutions from now on, but it will not enjoy official status. The same applies to Catalan and Galician. The ambassadors of the 25 European Union countries reached agreement in Luxembourg yesterday. EU Foreign Ministers are expected to approve the accord without entering into any debate.

This decision in Europe comes as a result of a request made by the Spanish Government. Initially, Spain wanted the language rules to be changed so that Basque, Catalan and Galician could be official. That option was however dropped, because the European Union Treaty would need changing beforehand. It must be pointed out that even though Spain has made this request, MPs who speak Basque, Catalan and Galician will not have an opportunity to use these languages in Congress (the lower house of the Spanish Parliament). In recent times there has been a lot of tension between ERC MPs and Manuel Marin, the Speaker of the lower house of the Spanish Parliament. Whenever Catalan MPs tried to speak in their own language, they were silenced by Marin.

Confusing huh?

I have only one question to the big wigs runing the European Union.

Do they understand the importance of preserving Europe's oldest language?

Do they realize that a language is to be spoken in order to continue to be?

Or do they want to preserve it in museums, in books and recordings?

For the sake of their own credibility, they need to come up with answers to those questions

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