Plaid Cymru MEP Jill Evans has welcomed the promise of the new President of the European Parliament, Martin Schultz, to support the use of 'co-official' languages such Welsh, Catalan and Basque in parliament's debates. Mr Schultz was elected on Tuesday. He had previously assured Ms Evans of his support for such a move.

Jill Evans has long campaigned for interpretation in parliament for languages which have official status in their own countries. This would enable MEPs to use those languages in parliamentary debates. Welsh, Catalan, Basque and Galician already have 'co-official' status in the EU and all the other institutions have adopted rules to recognise this.

Welsh has been spoken with translation in the Council of Ministers and in the Committee of the Regions, but the European Parliament did not adopt the rules in full. It means that constituents from Wales can correspond with the parliament and receive replies in Welsh and that Welsh interpreters have been trained and accredited to work in EU institutions, but MEPs speaking Welsh don't get translated into other languages.

Commenting, Jill Evans MEP said,

"I congratulate Mr Schultz on his election as President of the European Parliament. He has supported having interpretation of 'co-official' languages such Welsh in the European Parliament and has promised to put the issue on the agenda of the committee that decides on parliament's rules..

"I've been campaigning since my election in 1999 for equality for all our languages in the EU. We have been successful on a number of issues: overturning the outright ban on speaking other languages in the chamber and winning 'co-official' status. This is a semi-official status given to languages which are recognised as official in their own countries but not yet on a European level. Plaid Cymru in government ensured that Welsh was given official status and that the UK government applied for co-official status in the EU. This enabled people to correspond with the EU institutions in Welsh and Welsh has been spoken with translation in the Council of Ministers and in the Committee of the Regions, but the European Parliament itself did not adopt the rules in full. With the support of Mr Schultz I believe we can change that now.

"This would be another step forward in the campaign for full official status for Welsh so it is recognised as being equal to all the other languages of Europe."

Ends.