All non-state languages with official recognition in any EU territory should also be granted official status at the EU level. This is one of the main demands included in the Roadmap for Linguistic Diversity, which was unveiled yesterday in the European Parliament by the Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity (NPLD).

The move could benefit speakers of languages such as Catalan, Basque, Galician, Welsh or Occitan, which do not enjoy official status at the state level, but are official at the sub-state level in some of the territories where they are traditionally spoken.

The NPLD roadmap also calls the EU to encourage the use of all European languages -and therefore not only the state languages-, to work to ensure compliance of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, and to assume that non-state languages are important assets for the EU's economic and cultural development.

According to the NPLD, the proposal is based on a resolution on endangered languages that was approved by the European Parliament in September 2013. The resolution called on EU authorities and member states to take real action to protect Europe's minorised languages.

A process open to contributions

Yesterday's presentation marked the beginning of an open discussion and contribution process to the roadmap. "Over the next few months," the NPLD says, the roadmap "will develop a high level vision of a multilingual and linguistically diverse Europe." The European network argues this fits the EU's motto "United in diversity".

The NPLD is made up of governments and civil society organizations. Among the former, Catalonia, Galicia, Euskadi, Friesland, Wales, Navarre, Ireland, Trento, Brittany, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and the Swedish Parliament of Finland can be mentioned.