Bulgarian, Romanian, Irish Become EU Official Languages

Politics » BULGARIA IN EU | January 1, 2007, Monday // 00:00

Bulgarian, Romanian and Irish (Gaeilge) languages obtain an official status in the EU on January 1, 2007, bringing the total number of "linguae europeae" to 23.

The European Commission has announced Bulgarian and Romanian get official status on the same day when the two Balkan countries join the EU.

With the adoption of Bulgarian, the alphabets in use across the Union get enlarged by one more - the Cyrillic, having a history of more than 10 centuries.

According to Ireland's 2002 census, 1.57 million of the four million population can speak Irish. The EU will have a team of 29 translators and editors to handle Irish, as well as 450 freelance interpreter days annually, costing some EUR 3.5 M.

It is up to the European Commission's Directorate-General for Interpretation to make sure communication at meetings and conferences is smooth.

With the establishment of the new portfolio of multilinguism for Romania's European Commissioner Leonard Orban the Commission has strongly emphaised the importance of enhancing language diversity.

The Commission describes linguistic diversity as a "key theme" in the EU, noting that Catalan, Basque and Galician have been granted semi-official status.

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