The decision that was announced on July 10, 2006 to recognize Irish as the European Union's (EU) 21st official language is stirring a debate in the countries of the union on the financial implications of the move. It is also raising protests by various national groups who are lobbying to have their own languages added.
With an annual interpretation and translation budget of 1 Billion Euro, the acceptance of Irish as an official EU language is going to drive this figure higher. And this is for a language which is not widely spoken. Recent figures indicate that much less than 30% of Ireland's 4 million population speak the language fluently. (This is in contrast to other, more widely-spoken languages such as Catalan, which is spoken by approximately 7 million people in the Catalonia region of Spain .)
The move to add Irish has also sparked protests from populations that speak languages such as Catalan, Valencian, Basque, Galician and Welsh. These groups would also like official recognition by the EU. But since these languages are not official languages in their respective countries, the EU is not likely to add them anytime soon.
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