Spain allows regional languages to be spoken in Parliament

The Spanish Parliament has decided to grant permission to its national legislators to use the country’s minority languages of Catalan, Basque and Galician for the first time in its history.

As reported by the Spanish Local, the first multilingual session is to be held on September 19, which was a demand of Catalan separatist parties to support the appointment of a Socialist as the new Parliamentary Speaker last month following inconclusive national elections in July.

"[This change is] ... to normalize something that is already common for citizens who speak a language other than Spanish”, said Socialist Party member José Ramón Besteiro, who switched between Galician and Spanish to become the first lawmaker to take advantage of the modification.

Euronews reported, that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has requested in Brussels for the three regional languages to be recognized as official EU languages, yet this motion was denied as it did not receive unanimous. The publication argues, that this sudden initiative is driven by the PM not having collected enough seats back home in July to form a parliamentary majority on his own and now depends on the backing of smaller parties, which have made various demands in exchange for their endorsement, such as the inclusion of regional languages in daily politics.