The recent push by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to have Catalan, Euskera and Gallego recognised as official European Union languages has been interpreted in some quarters as yet another desperate ploy by a weak leader to cling to power. He is even accused of holding European defence cooperation hostage on this issues.

What’s really going on is more a political dance of a thousand veils than a high-level power play. In return for the parliamentary votes to make him Prime Minister, Sánchez promised the Catalan nationalist Junts party that he’d try to get Catalan made an official EU language. To avoid recriminations from representatives of the communities where Euskera (Basque) and Gallego (Galician) are spoken, they had to be included in the package too.

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