Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Deputy Griffin. This committee needs to get that information before it starts making decisions. If there is agreement, we will write to the Department to try to get that information and try to fix a date in the near future to invite the petitioners to appear before us and lay out their case. Is that agreed? Agreed.

The next petition is P00034/23 to request that the Irish State supports Catalan and-or the Basque language being made an official EU language from Carlos Pujol. The petition is requesting that the Irish State reacts supportively to any request from France or Spain seeking that the Catalan and-or the Basque language be made an official EU language noting that both countries in 2007 supported Ireland's successful request to confer official EU language on the Irish language.

The petition case manager wrote to the Department of Foreign Affairs and in its reply, the Department noted that the EU member states were informed on 18 August 2023 of the decision of the Spanish Government to request the modification of Regulation No. 1 "determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community" to include Catalan, Basque and Galician. Ireland will support discussion on this matter at Council should Spain proceed with the proposal. It is too early at this stage for Ireland to take a definitive position on the Spanish Government's proposal in the absence of detail and before a formal presentation.

The updated note we have from the Council of the European Union states that the Council discussed a request by Spain to include Catalan, Basque and Galician in Regulation No. 1/1958, which governs the EU’s language regime, at its meeting on 19 September. The request was notified to the Council presidency on 17 August 2023 in a letter by Spain’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, the European Union and Cooperation.

Currently, the use of Catalan, Basque and Galician is governed by administrative arrangements between Spain and individual EU institutions and advisory bodies. The Council had a constructive exchange and decided to continue working on the request by Spain to amend Regulation No 1. The General Affairs Council will remain seized of the matter.

The committee recommends that the correspondence from the Department of Foreign Affairs be sent to the petitioner and based on the response from the Department of Foreign Affairs that the petition be deemed closed. Do members have views on that or is that agreed?