official languages of the European Union

Dear Sir or Madam,

Would you please let me know whether the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office's understanding of the principle for official languages of
the European Union is that each newly-acceding member state can put
forward at most one new official language for the European Union
('one member state, one language').

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Dr Kaihsu Tai

Dear Madam or Sir,

I asked on 23 July 2008 "Would you please let me know whether the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office's understanding of the principle
for official languages of the European Union is that each
newly-acceding member state can put forward at most one new
official language for the European Union ('one member state, one
language')."

You notified me on the same day that you "will not be treating your
question under the Freedom Of Information Act but will reply to you
as part of our normal correspondence", which I appreciate.

However, today you sent me a message, which does not answer my
question, but is related to Sikh lobby to the European Parliament.
I am afraid a mistake was made. Would you please answer my question
in your convenience?

I thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Kaihsu Tai

Dear EU Institutions Team,

I thank you for your helpful response.

Sincerely,

Kaihsu Tai

-----Original Message-----

Dear Dr Tai,

Thank you for your email of 23 July regarding languages in the
European Union. I am replying as the responsible Desk Officer.

The official languages of the European Union were originally
stipulated in EEC Council Regulation No 1/1958 determining the
languages to be used by the European Economic Community. They are
those “whose status is recognised by the Constitution of a Member
State in all or part of its territory or the use of which as a
national language is authorised by law”.

The European Union currently has 27 Member States and 23 official
languages. Each Member State, when it joins the Union, stipulates
which language or languages it wishes to have declared official
languages of the EU. The agreement on this matter is then recorded
in the Act of Accession.

There is now also provision for the limited recognition by the EU
of languages other than the official languages. On 13 June 2005,
the Council authorised the limited use at EU level of languages
recognised by Member States other than the official working
languages and granted recognition to "languages other than the
languages referred to in Council Regulation No 1/1958 whose status
is recognised by the Constitution of a Member State on all or part
of its territory or the use of which as a national language is
authorised by law”. The official use of such languages is
authorised on the basis of an administrative arrangement concluded
between the Council and the requesting Member State.

Such an administrative arrangement was recently agreed between the
UK and the Council (published in the Official Journal C 194,
31/07/2008 P. 0007 – 0008) permitting “the official use at the
Council of the languages other than those referred to in Regulation
No 1/1958 and whose status is recognised, in the United Kingdom's
constitutional system, by Acts of Parliament of the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and/or legislative acts of
the appropriate legislative body”. On this basis, the Government
has reached agreement with the Welsh Assembly Government on the
limited use of Welsh at EU level, and expects to reach shortly a
similar agreement with the Scottish Executive on the limited use of
Scottish Gaelic. Spain has also taken advantage of these provisions
for its regional languages.

I hope you find this reply helpful.

Yours sincerely,

EU Institutions Team
Europe Delivery Group