By Martin Banks - 3rd June 2008
The European parliament has been urged to provide simultaneous interpretation for ‘minority’ European languages such as Basque, Catalan and Welsh.
Supporters of the move point out that Catalan, with an estimated nine million speakers, is spoken by more people than many countries whose MEPs benefit from such translation facilities in parliament.
A news conference on Tuesday was also told that citizens and organisations such as NGOs, should be able to correspond with EU institutions in their own language.
Welsh Nationalist MEP Jill Evans, who was one of those speaking at the event, raised the issue of the Welsh language, which is spoken by about 500,000 people.
“The Welsh assembly is already negotiating with the European commission over practical arrangements to provide simultaneous interpretation that will allow the use of Welsh at the council of ministers and for people to be able to communicate with the EU institutions in Welsh,” she said.
She, and MEP colleagues from Spain, called on parliament to provide similar translation facilities in Welsh, Basque and Catalan during the assembly’s plenary sessions.
“Parliament’s authorities have been reluctant to accord greater status to languages such as Welsh despite agreement at government level to do so,” she said.
Evans is campaigning for Welsh to be made an official EU language and was the first speaker to address parliament officially in Welsh.
Also speaking at the news conference was Lorena Lopez de la Calle, deputy minister for languages in the Basque country.
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