TRANSLATION OF EU CONSTITUTION INTO WELSH

Motion Text

That this House notes the increasing number of people who speak Welsh, in particular the increasing number of young people under the age of 25 who speak the language; congratulates the Irish Government for its recent decision to seek approval for Irish as an official European language; notes the significant number of people in Wales whose first and preferred language is Welsh; calls on the United Kingdom Government to translate the draft European Constitution into Welsh; believes that this will make the EU more accessible to people who speak Welsh; urges the UK Government to apply for Welsh to become an official language for treaty purposes, a status currently held by the Irish language; further believes that Welsh-speakers should be able to communicate with EU institutions in their first language; therefore encourages the UK Government to go further and seek approval for the Welsh language to be awarded the status currently only held by Catalan, which would allow Welsh-speakers to communicate with and receive information from the European Commission in Welsh.