Spain could become an unexpected obstacle on Montenegro’s path towards membership of the European Union (EU), due to Madrid’s domestic political agenda.
The Spanish government is now directly linking the issue of recognising Catalan, Basque and Galician as official EU languages with the bloc’s future enlargement.
Madrid insists that the status of these three languages should be resolved before the accession of new member states adds further official languages to the EU. Among the candidate countries, Montenegro is currently the closest to membership.
Although Madrid has not officially said it would block enlargement, statements by Spanish officials leave open the question of whether the language issue could become a condition for progress in the enlargement process.
“It is time that, 40 years after Spain joined the European Union, we put an end to the discrimination faced by 20 million Spaniards, or 20 million Europeans living in territories with more than one official language, compared with other Europeans who also have more than one official language,” Spain’s Secretary of State for European Affairs, Fernando Sampedro Marcos, said in Brussels.
In 2023, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares formally submitted a proposal to the Council of the EU for Catalan, Basque and Galician to be recognised as official languages of the European Union.
Madrid is now insisting that the issue of these three languages be resolved before the next wave of enlargement, in other words before the number of official EU languages increases with the admission of new members.
At the same time, Spain stresses that it supports enlargement and the progress of candidate countries, but wants its request to be resolved before new members add further languages to the Union’s institutional system.
“Over the past three years, we have dealt with all the issues and all the questions that have arisen in relation to this. We have explained the proposal, and I think it is completely clear that there is absolutely no reason for the adoption of this decision to continue to be delayed,” Sampedro said.
“We are simply convinced that Catalan, Galician and Basque will become official languages of the European Union, and we hope that this will happen soon,” he added.
Spain’s request was one of the topics discussed at today’s meeting of EU ministers responsible for European affairs.
According to diplomatic sources at the ministerial meeting, the Spanish minister presented his position, although during his remarks, sources told RFE/RL, he “did not make an explicit link” between the admission of new members and the decision on the languages.
Spain requested that the issue be placed on the agenda for the first time in more than a year. However, today’s discussion was not intended to include a vote and no final decision on the request was expected.
This was also confirmed by the host of the meeting, Irish Minister for European Affairs Thomas Byrne, whose country holds the presidency of the Council of the EU.
“We will have a brief discussion, which Minister Sampedro will open today, on the issue of languages. I do not expect us to reach any outcome on this issue today. We will listen to what our Spanish colleague has to say and consider it. The Council has previously issued a legal opinion on this matter. I assume that, as a representative of the presidency, I will have to accept it,” Byrne said.
The legal opinion of the Council of the EU’s Legal Service on Spain’s 2023 proposal was requested following discussions at a meeting of the EU General Affairs Council held shortly after the proposal was submitted.
The Council, however, did not publish the detailed written legal opinion at the time.
At an informal ministerial meeting in early September, Spain brought the language issue back onto the agenda and intensified its efforts.
Secretary of State for European Affairs Fernando Sampedro, in a submission to the country holding the EU presidency, explicitly linked the language issue with future enlargement. He said the EU would soon have more official languages and that Spain hoped the issue of Catalan, Galician and Basque would be resolved before then.
This marks a significant change after several months of stagnation in the consideration of Spain’s proposal.
The last time the issue was discussed at ministerial level was in July 2025. At the time, the request faced reservations from several member states, including Germany.
According to RFE/RL sources, Germany explicitly opposed linking the two processes during discussions among ministers. According to the same sources, Germany’s position was supported by at least two other EU member states.
German State Secretary for European Affairs Gunther Krichbaum said ahead of the meeting that he opposed what he described as the “bilateralisation of the EU integration process.”
“We need to be strong together. And we need to put this unity into the balance. Above all, this gives us the weight we need. And anything that jeopardises the possibility of reaching agreements with other states that want to join the European Union is not helpful,” Krichbaum told reporters.
He called on his colleagues in Madrid to show “a little more European spirit.”
Germany is among the member states that, in early September, submitted a proposal to European institutions to limit the use of vetoes in certain areas of EU decision-making.
Among other things, the proposal states that there is a need to prevent the use of vetoes to pursue the domestic political interests of member states.
If Spain maintains its position that the status of Catalan, Basque and Galician must be resolved before the next enlargement, the issue could have direct consequences for the pace of Montenegro’s accession.
Madrid, however, has not officially stated that it would block the accession of new member states if its request is not accepted.
Asked whether this meant Spain could make the admission of new members, including Montenegro, conditional on resolving the language issue, Sampedro left the possibility open. He said he was confident the issue would be resolved “well before” the first deadline for the next enlargement.
However, he confirmed that Spain supports Montenegro’s accession to the EU.
Montenegro is currently the most advanced candidate country in the EU accession process. The EU has already begun drafting Montenegro’s accession treaty, and EU Council President António Costa said in June that the process was moving towards Montenegro becoming the EU’s 28th member state by 2028.
So far, Montenegro has provisionally closed 18 of the 33 negotiating chapters. Podgorica aims to complete negotiations by the end of 2026 and become the EU’s 28th member state in 2028.
Drafting of the accession treaty between the EU and Montenegro has already begun in Brussels. This represents an important step in the final phase of the accession negotiations.
The Irish presidency of the Council of the EU has said that completing negotiations with Montenegro will be one of its enlargement priorities. /RFE/RL
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