Is í an Ghaeilge an
21ú teanga oifigiúil
den Aontas Eorpach

Irish becomes the 21st official language of the EU

Irish was granted the status of an official and working language of the European Union by the Council on 13 June 2005.

The very first Council Regulation dating back to 1958, which is the legal basis of the language policy in the EU, was amended to include Irish as the 21st official language alongside German, English, Danish, Spanish, Estonian, Finnish, French, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Slovak, Slovenian, Swedish and Czech.

The amended Regulation will apply from 1 January 2007. For practical reasons, the Council decided that only regulations adopted by the European Parliament and the Council under the co-decision procedure will have to be available in Irish. Other legislative acts will be exempted for a transition period of five years to allow time to train and recruit translators. Thereafter, the situation will be reviewed regularly to decide when this exemption should end. This arrangement is broadly similar to the agreement reached with the government of Malta on translation of documents into Maltese.

To implement the amended Council Regulation, it is estimated that the EU institutions will need 29 new posts for translators and support staff. The Irish government has committed itself to train the necessary number of translators and interpreters and to bear the related costs. From January 2007 onwards, the annual costs to the EU of the Irish language services are estimated at around 3.5 million euros.

Since the accession of Ireland in 1973, Irish has had the status of a Treaty language. Therefore, the primary legislation, including the accession agreement, and certain other pieces of legislation have already been translated into Irish.