WRITTEN QUESTION E-0654/02

by Camilo Nogueira Román (Verts/ALE) to the Council

(19 March 2002)

Subject: Languages threatened with disappearance at world level: non-official languages of the EU Member States the Galician language in the Spanish state

The Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger of Disappearing, recently issued by Unesco to coincide with International Mother Language Day, declares that half of the world's 6000 languages are facing the risk of dying out. This atlas confirms that 3000 languages are in serious danger of dying out in numerous parts of the world. For this reason, Unesco's Director-General, Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, has declared that recognition of the equal status of all languages is the only response that can reflect the values of the human condition. The Atlas identifies a number of different crisis areas located in all the regions of the globe, among them Asia (including China), the Pacific islands, Australia, Africa, North America (including the US), the Arctic regions and Central and South America. It also highlights the grave predicament of numerous European languages, not only outside but also within the EU. Within the Union, the Atlas takes the view that a real threat also exists to those languages which are subordinated to and objectively dominated by the official language of their Member State, even where those languages have legal co-official status within a specific geographical area.

This is the case with the Galician language, spoken in the Spanish state, which the Atlas classifies as an endangered language. Galician is the national language of Galicia and is understood by 97 % of the Galician population and spoken by 86 %. Despite this, the pressure of the official language of the Spanish state in public administration, business, the media and the church, the fact that Spanish is the only language which all are required to learn by law, and the failure of the Galician regional authorities to meet their moral obligation to devise proactive and effective political and educational

policies for the protection and development of the Galician languages, are all factors tending to work against Galician becoming the norm even though it is a language with a remarkable history and a sophisticated literature of recognised merit. These legal, political and social circumstances inevitably have an adverse impact on the day-to-day use of the language and its transmission through social and family channels. In view of all the above, it is clear that Galician needs to have real equal status with other languages, and specifically with Spanish in keeping with the values of the human condition, as Unesco's Director-General has stressed. However, the reality is that its legal status is being undermined, in parallel with the political and administrative attitudes of the authorities of both the Spanish state and Galicia.

It is a quite unacceptable contradiction that a particular set of political circumstances in the Spanish state should be endangering the Galician language in its very birthplace endangering a language which is not only the tongue of the Galician nation but is also a universal language, forming part as it does of the Galaico-Portuguese language system which pertains to hundreds of millions of speakers spread across four continents, above all in Brazil.

In view of these circumstances, what measures do the Council and the Spanish presidency intend to take in order to cooperate with Unesco in the preservation of the world's endangered language heritage? What political and legal actions does it intend to undertake in order to ensure that European languages like Galician can obtain equal legal status and social and cultural conditions of development and general use on the same footing as the official languages of their Member States? Should equal status not be obtained, will those nations and regions which have their own languages have any option for the preservation and defence of those languages other than to declare independence?

Reply

(26 June 2002)

The Council would refer the Honourable Member to the reply it has already given to Question H-0076/01 put by Josu Ortuondo Larrea at Question Time session during the plenary session of the European Parliament in March 2002, and the reply it made to Question E-0063/02 which he himself put on the same subject.