WRITTEN QUESTION E-0654/02 by Camilo Nogueira Román (Verts/ALE) to the Council. Languages threatened with disappearance at world level: non-official languages of the EU Member States — the Galician language in the Spanish state.
Date: 2002-03-19
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Galicia, Presidency of the Council of the EU, Spain, Unesco, cultural heritage, minority language, official language, report

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Official Journal of the European Communities

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26.9.2002

(2002/C 229 E/132)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0653/02

by Mario Borghezio (NI) to the Council

(19 March 2002)

Subject: Need for the EU to guarantee Mr Arafat full liberty

Following the arrest by the Palestinian National Authority of the person responsible for the assassination of
the Israeli minister Mr Zeevi,
it was
universally assumed by world public opinion that the ‘confinement’ of Mr Arafat would come to an end.

in the wake of strong pressures from the Israeli government,

By contrast, the highly controversial decision by the Jerusalem authorities to continue confining Mr Arafat
within the restricted territory of Ramallah cannot possibly be seen as a contribution to détente or to peace.
It also prevents Mr Arafat from undertaking, on a basis of full personal liberty, the activities of monitoring
the Palestinian terrorist fringes and engaging in political mediation, which are considered in all quarters to
be essential if there is to be peace.

Does the Council not believe that there is an urgent need to intervene so as to ensure that the Palestinian
leader has full freedom of movement to enable him pursue the activities of monitoring and prevention of
terrorism, given also that such freedom is indissociable from the Palestinian Authority’s demand for the
right to exercise full sovereignty over even a comparatively small area of Palestine?

Reply

(27 June 2002)

The Council shares the concern of the Honourable Member. It, like the European Council meeting in
Barcelona, has made quite clear its wish to see President Arafat enjoy full freedom of movement. It is a
position that the Council has also made clear in its contacts with the Government of Israel, through the
Presidency and High Representative.

(2002/C 229 E/133)

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

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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.

(2002/C 229 E/134)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0661/02

by Vitaliano Gemelli (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(11 March 2002)

Subject: Administrative cases brought by officials and other staff of the European Commission

In its White Paper on administrative reform, the Commission maintains that it wants to make its staff
policy more effective by means of a clear definition of tasks and greater managerial responsibility for staff,
who in certain circumstances would be awarded financial premiums.

In the light of this, can the Commission indicate for the past five years:

= the number and subject of actions brought in the Court of First Instance and the Court of Justice by
officials and other staff, involving the application of the Staff Regulations, other than cases brought by
the Ombudsman;

= how many of these actions were upheld, even in part, by the Court of First Instance and the Court of

Justice and what were the main grounds for the decisions;

= what measures have been taken to remedy management failings established by the Court of First

Instance?