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November 2004: Jill Evans becomes first person to legally speak Welsh in European Parliament following rule changes led by her parliamentary group.March 2005: called for EU Constitution to be translated into Welsh. Jill Evans and Elfyn Llwyd meet UK government to press case for recognition of Welsh language. Announcement marks the first step in winning co-official EU status. June 2005: Jill Evans spoke in Welsh in European Parliament during debate with Tony Blair during UK EU Presidency.June 2005: Decision by Europe's Foreign Ministers on framework for co-official status for Catalan, Galician and Basque. Citizens can correspond with EU institutions in these languages and they can be spoken with interpretation in most of the institutions. Jill Evans called on UK government to follow this example for Welsh.August 2005: distributed language information packs, asking people to write to Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary, calling for Welsh to be given the same rights as Catalan, Basque and Galician.September 2005: Jill Evans and Hywel Williams MP hold meetings in Brussels as part of Plaid Cymru's campaign to improve the status of the Welsh language in the EU.November 2005: UK presidency signs agreement for Catalan, Basque and Galician to be given co-official status, and so can be used in official meetings and correspondence.June 2006: Welsh Assembly's European Affairs Committee announce they are to consider a proposal for limited use of Welsh in EU institutions.July 2006: Jill Evans writes to Rhodri Morgan asking him to follow Spain's example and ensure the UK government covers translating costs. November 2006: Jill Evans makes the case for co-official status to the Assembly's European Affairs Committee, by live video link from Brussels.January 2007: EU Commissioner for multi-lingualism appointedJune 2007: Commitment to get co-official status for Welsh is in the One Wales coalition agreement, first put forward by Jill Evans. June 2008: Jill Evans launches appeal asking organisations in Wales to write to President of the European Parliament, stating their support for the right to communicate with the Parliament in Welsh.July 2008: Welsh made a co-official language in the EU Council. September 2008: Jill Evans meets with President of the European Parliament to discuss making Welsh co-official in Parliament.November 2008: Heritage Minister Alun Ffred Jones to address Council in Welsh for the first time.
3 comments:
"Welsh will not be added to the list of the EU's 23 official languages, but it will mean speeches can be given in Welsh and translated.
The EU has 23 official languages, among them Slovak, Slovene and Maltese.
EU rules only have legal effect once they have been translated into all of the official languages and incorporated into national laws."
Does that mean that an Independent Wales wouldn't be subject to EU law unless its language was official? Excuse my ignorance.
(well done Jill, you've done us proud)
What a waste of time. Sorry. Council is a show, it's all pre-cooked beforehand, and you can for sure bet that all the pre-cooking will be done in English. Apart from the novelty factor nothing will be gained...
Plenty of MEPs from Sweden, Netherlands etc., have understood that it's better to speak in English because that way people understand you first hand, rather than awaiting the interpretation delay. The same will happen to Alun Ffred Jones.
And I say this as someone that speaks English, French, German, Italian and Swedish...
The Welsh language is not alone in fighting for its linguistic rights.
The promulgation of English as the world's "lingua franca" is impractical and linguistically undemocratic. I say this as a native English speaker!
Impractical because communication should be for all and not only for an educational or political elite. That is how English is used internationally at the moment.
Undemocratic because minority languages are under attack worldwide due to the encroachment of majority ethnic languages. Even Mandarin Chinese is attempting to dominate as well. The long-term solution must be found and a non-national language, which places all ethnic languages on an equal footing is essential.
An interesting video can be seen at http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU Professor Piron was a former translator with the United Nations
A glimpse of Esperanto can be seen at http://www.lernu.net
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