European Commission can now correspond in Welsh
15 Jul 2009
Following discussions between the Welsh Assembly Government, the UK Government and EU institutions, the European Commission has made a decision to agree to deal with written correspondence through the medium of Welsh.
The decision has been formalised by an agreement signed on 9th July by Sir Kim Darroch, UK Permanent Representative to the EU and Catherine Day, Secretary General of the European Commission.
This means that citizens will now be able to write to the Commission in Welsh and receive a reply in the same language.
"This is about putting practical measures in place to make the EU more open and accessible to its citizens. We're committed to ensuring similar arrangements across the institutions of the EU," Sir Kim Darroch has been quoted as saying[1].
This does not however mean that Welsh will become an official EC language and the cost of the arrangement will have to be met by the Welsh Assembly Government and the Welsh Language Board, based on the number of pages translated this year.
Similar arrangements have been put in place for Basque, Catalan and Galician since 2005.
[1] Source: http://www.euractiv.com/en/culture/welsh-language-commission-debut/article-183918
