Spain hits the wall, again and again. Many of his European partners have told him very clearly in recent weeks that his proposal for Catalan, Basque and Galician to be official languages in the European Union is out of place.. If there is ever a good time, this is not it.. That the forms, trying to rush him into a meeting of ministers with hardly any prior discussion, were not and are not correct. That there are many more costs than benefits, and not exactly economic ones.. What would it be to open a Pandora's box that is too uncertain?. And, above all, that the EU right now has much more urgent issues to address, real, almost existential threats, and that governments and ministers should not have to dedicate their time to issues that have no future, that already seemed to have been settled last year. last month and that are making some capitals lose patience.

That is the balance of the General Affairs Council (CAG) that was held this Tuesday in Luxembourg and in which even more governments have reiterated, in public and loudly, that the Government's priority to tie up an investiture is interfering with the priorities of the EU, and it squeaks especially when Spain has the rotating presidency of the Council. This allows Minister José Manuel Albares, who never participates in a CAG, to have been able to put the issue back on the agenda, even though it should have been settled in September.. The ministers then told him, inside the room as they had said outside, that he should not. That obviously the motion was not going to be approved either that day or in the short term, and they did what is always done in these cases in the Union: leave it in the hands of lower levels with the vague objective of entrusting it to the appropriate institutions at some point some reports on economic costs, legal implications and practical assessments of what the entry of three additional official languages would mean for community functioning.

Spain, however, has turned a deaf ear. Pedro Sánchez's Executive has to satisfy the independence movement, especially the Catalan one, which has put the issue as a red line to negotiate the investiture. Spain cannot commit to approval, which depends on the unanimity of the 27, but it can commit to doing everything possible. And there is no doubt that he is doing so, at the cost of losing political capital that he could use for other national priorities and irritating his partners.. That is why Albares, unresponsive to discouragement, has left the Grand Duchy indicating that Spain is going to tweak its proposal, which will soon come with something more detailed, a proposal to change the regulation made completely to measure..

Last month it was Sweden or Finland that officially made it clear that they could not support the idea, which generated enough reservations, without any type of prior impact report.. Finland has repeated it again along with Estonia and Latvia, countries that in the past, due to their own history, had tended to be receptive to the narrative of the independence movement.. But they also, due to their own problems and Russian minorities, take a dim view of the proposal..

“Without any preparation”

“It is an issue that was presented very quickly for discussion, without any preparation or really any presentation on what it could lead to from a legislative or economic point of view,” explained the Finnish Minister of European Affairs, Anders Adlercreutz, the same as the Last month, to show his sympathy within the refusal, he made his statements in Catalan. “I don't think we are going to extend the number of languages officially used in the EU at the moment. I don't think that's the number one issue we have to discuss.. “There are very important issues on the table such as the geopolitical situation and the strategic position of Europe in the future, and I think we should dedicate our time to focusing on that now,” concluded the Latvian foreign minister, Krisjanis Karins, sternly..

Albares' response has been to reiterate Spain's willingness to assume the economic costs, indicating that in the future technology will allow much faster and cheaper interpretations and translations.. And promise a much more specific legal proposal, practically only valid for this case. “The proposed reform is limited exclusively to the case of Spain, given that it meets unique requirements in the Union and, therefore, other languages will not be able to benefit from this reform if the Member State does not want its use in EU institutions for some time.” decades and for fully financing it in Spain (…) When it comes to unanimity, votes don't matter, vetoes matter and there are no vetoes,” he celebrated, trying to calm the fears of countries that are home to up to 80 minority languages..

The Government knows that it is playing with the patience of its European partners, but it has no margin because those who have the investiture in their hands do not let up. The independence movement continues to praise the Foreign Minister, but they ask him for more, much more. “It is positive that there have been no vetoes and that some Member States have made explicit their support for Albares' proposal,” said the Government spokesperson, Patrícia Plaja, this afternoon, after the weekly meeting of the Republican Left Executive.. But for them, the progress “is not enough”, because “putting the issue back on the table is not complying”. Junts maintains the same, which demands “intensifying diplomatic efforts.” “We are in stoppage time,” stressed Carles Puigdemont's party, which has asked that a date be announced for the definitive approval of the Catalan's officialdom in view of the fact that there is barely a month left until the deadline for negotiations runs out. for Sánchez's investiture.