The president of the Plataforma per la Llengua, Òscar Escuder and the MEPs Josep-Maria Terricabras (ERC/ALE); Jordi Solé (ERC/ALE); Ramon Tremosa (PDECAT/ALDE); Ernerst Urtasun (ICV/Greens); Javi López (PSC/S&D) and Francesc Gambús (PPE), have sent a letter to the candidates to preside the European Parliament in order to petition them to undertake to promote the official use of Catalan in the Institution if they are elected.

In the letter, the MEPs argue that "in the framework of the efforts to bring the EU closer to the citizens, the wealth of its linguistic diversity must be considered, because allowing citizens to use the jointly-official languages of the Member States in their dealings with the European institutions reinforces their identification with the EU's political project".

In this regard, the MEPs recall that "in 2005, the Committee of the Regions, and in 2006, the Council, reached an agreement with the Spanish and British Governments to allow languages that have a constitutional rank, in this case Catalan, to be used for different purposes, including interpreting", and emphasise that "hitherto, neither the Committee nor the Council have reported any problems in the application of this agreement".

The MEPs also remind the candidates that the EP "as an institution has historically promoted cultural and linguistic diversity and minority languages", whereby they believe that "the time has come for the EP to follow the road already taken by the Committee and the Council".

The letter has been sent to Antonio Tajani, candidate for PPE; Gianni Pitella, candidate for S&D; Helga Stevens, for ECR; Guy Verhofstadt, of ALDE; Eleonora Forenza, of GUE; and Jean Lambert of Greens/ALE.