Luxembourgish in the EU Parliament? Nee.

During a free debate in the EU Parliament on Monday evening, in which MEPs are allowed to “draw the attention of the Parliament to a politically important matter”, Fernand Kartheiser started to give a speech in Luxembourgish, but was not allowed to finish.

Kartheiser and his ADR party would like to be able to use Luxembourgish in the European Parliament, but it is not one of the 24 official EU languages. Parliament’s interpretation service had already confirmed to Luxemburger Wort on Friday that it could not translate the speech in real time.

The vice-president of the EU Parliament, Esteban Gonzalez Pons, who chaired the debate, interrupted to tell Kartheiser to use an official EU language. Kartheiser continued trying to speak in Luxembourgish and spoke of alleged discrimination.

At the second warning, he switched to English to make a brief plea for official recognition of Luxembourgish at the EU level.

“Luxembourgish should not be discriminated against by the EU Parliament and should be recognised like all other languages,” the ADR politician said.

Not all languages spoken in the EU are official EU languages. Catalan, Ukrainian, Arabic and Romany, for example, have more native speakers within the EU than Luxembourgish, but are not spoken in the EU Parliament. There are also many regional languages such as Galician and Basque.

Luxembourgish became an official national language 40 years ago and was enshrined in the constitution in 2023, but whether Luxembourg should apply for it to become an official EU language is a question clouded by the fact that the country writes its own national laws in French. There is also the question of translation and interpretation costs, which some see as potentially wasteful in a proudly trilingual country.

Criticism of the government

Kartheiser notes, however, that Luxembourgish is the only national language that cannot be spoken in the EU Parliament (though Turkish and Catalan can arguably also claim that status due to their standing in Cyprus and Spain).

He has now submitted a formal proposal to change the rules on language use in the EU Parliament. His chance of success is slim, however, as the Parliament’s room for linguistic manoeuvre is limited by EU law jointly set by national governments and not the Parliament.

“If he is really serious about this, he should call on the government of Luc Frieden to initiate the necessary procedures. In other words, to advocate for this in the Council of Member States,” said the LSAP MEP Marc Angel. “If Fernand Kartheiser really thinks it is important to formally strengthen the Luxembourgish language at EU level, then a circus act in the EU Parliament is not the right way to go,” he told Luxemburger Wort.

(This article appeared in Luxemburger Wort. Translation and editing by Alex Stevensson.)