18
CATALAN AND THE ELEVEN OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
Languages of the In the European Union, the languages with official status are those
states; languages of which have been unanimously agreed upon by the Council of Europe.
the EU With respect to member states where several official languages exist,
the use of the language must be determined according to the legisla-
tion of the state, at the request of the interested state.
At present, there are eleven official languages in the fifteen-strong
EU: German (Germany, Austria and Belgium), English (the United
Kingdom and Ireland), Spanish, Danish, Finnish, French (France and
Belgium), Dutch (Netherlands and Belgium), Greek, Italian, Portu-
guese and Swedish (Sweden and Finland).
Official languages and All of these official languages are also working languages. As they are
working languages official languages, EU treaties and regulations are published in them.
As they are working languages, all internal and procedural documents
are published in them and official meetings must take place with si-
multaneous translation.
Two states of the EU share more than one official language throu-
ghout their territory: Ireland (English and Irish Gaelic) and Luxemburg
(Luxembourgish, French and German). Neither has applied to the EU
for the official status of their own language. There are two more
states which share official languages in part of their territory which
are already officially recognised in the EU because they are also lan-
guages from another state. This is the case of Belgium (French, Dutch
and German) and Finland (Finnish and Swedish). Spain, which has
four official languages, only applied for Castilian to be given official
status in the EU.
Despite this, in the European Union office in Barcelona, Catalan
can be used as a contact language with European institutions in ac-
cordance with the Resolution of the European Parliament, dated 11th
December 1990.
Catalan is the seventh In comparison with the eleven official languages of the European
most important Union, the territories in the Union where Catalan has official status
(Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Community of Valencia) have
language in the
more inhabitants than the territories in which five of the mentioned
European Union
languages have official status (see table 3).
Table 3. Catalan and the If the number of people who really can speak the language is only 19
eleven official languages of taken into account, Catalan is more widely spoken than Danish and
the European Union Finnish.
LANGUAGE INHABITANTS As far as economic power is concerned, it should be noted that the
German 90,2 M average GDP of EU member states is 21,000 EPA (1 EPA = 134.07
French 62,7 M PTA). Twelve states have a higher GDP than the average and three
English 62,2 M
have a lower one. The GDP of the Catalan speaking territories consid-
Italian 57,4 M
ered here (Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Community of Va-
Spanish 39,8 M
lencia) is higher than the GDP of Greece, Spain or Portugal.
Dutch 21,2 M
Catalan 10,8 M
Greek 10,6 M In map 1 below, the following can be seen:
Portuguese 9,8 M • the name of the official language and state or states where it is
Swedish 9,3 M officially recognised.
Danish 5,2 M • the population of the state or states where this language is offi-
Finnish 5,1 M cially recognised, expressed in millions of inhabitants (M)
DATA SOURCE :
IDESCAT. INE.
Panorama of the EU, 2000
ENGLISH FINNISH
United Kingdom and Ireland Finland
Population: 62,2 M Population: 5,1 M
FRENCH SWEDISH
France, Luxembourg Sweden and part
and part of Belgium of Finland
Population: 62,7 M Population: 9,3 M
ITALIAN DANISH
Italy Denmark
Population: 57,4 M Population: 5,2 M
SPANISH DUCHT
Spain Netherlands
Population: 39,8 M and part of Belgium
Population: 21,2 M
PORTUGUESE GERMAN
Portugal Germany, Luxembourg
Population: 9,8 M and Austria
Population: 90,2 M
CATALAN
Catalonia, Balearic Islands GREEK
and Community of Valencia Greece
Population: 10,8 M Population: 10,6 M
Catalan is the 7th language in comparison with the official languages of the EU
SOURCES : Panorama of the EU, 2000. IDESCAT. INE.
