Read in Catalan

The Bureau of the European Parliament will be in charge of deciding on the Spanish government's request to allow the use of Catalan in plenary sessions. The Bureau's next meeting will take place on October 3rd, in two weeks, in Strasbourg, on the first day of the plenary session. Roberta Metsola, president of the chamber, has already received the letter sent by the Spanish executive and will transfer its request to the Bureau, according to ACN. The European Parliament experts are now analysing the request, and they will “probably” send an evaluation of the initiative's implications to the Bureau before it makes a decision.

The Bureau of the European Parliament is made up of the president and 14 vice-presidencies, in addition to the five quaestors who deal with administrative and economic matters affecting the chamber's members. The body (excluding the Quaestors) is made up of five Social Democrats, three MEPs from the European People's Party, three Liberals from Renew Europe, one from the European Conservatives and Reformists, one from the Greens and one from the Left. The chairwoman is also part of the European People's Party and in the event of a tie has a casting vote. None of the members are Spanish.

Only official languages are accepted

Beyond the assessment made by the members of the Bureau and the experts, the rules of the European chamber must be taken into account. The Parliament only allows the MEPs to use the 24 languages recognized as official in the European Union, and Catalan is not one of them. For a language to become official in the European Union, all 27 member countries must approve its incorporation because the EU's language policy is set by the Council. However, the European Parliament's rules of procedure could also be modified. The changes must be proposed by the MEPs, and their request will be analysed by the competent committee, which will decide whether to vote on it or not.

Dialogue table agreement

Last Friday, La Moncloa Palace sent a letter to the presidency of the European Parliament requesting that Catalan, Galician, and Basque could be used in the European Parliament's plenary sessions. The proposal came after it was agreed to at the dialogue table between the Spanish and Catalan Governments on July 27th. Natàlia Garriga, Catalan minister of Culture, met with Isabel Rodríguez, Spanish minister of Territorial Policy and spokesperson of the Spanish executive, to “guarantee that the citizens of Catalonia can be attended to by the administrations of the State in Catalan”.