France and Italy are objecting to an EU proposal to do the detailed legal scrubbing of trade deals in English first, arguing it conflicts with multilingual rules and national constitutional requirements.
EU trade policy has run into a language dispute, after France and Italy pushed back against a Commission idea to do the detailed legal scrubbing of some trade agreements in English first.
The proposal is linked to EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič, who told member-state ministers in May that he wanted the legal scrubbing of a recent accord with Indonesia to be done entirely in English, according to the Financial Times.
Šefčovič has argued that the current multilingual process can take up to two years and that shortening it could cut the time to about one year. The Commission’s aim, according to the FT, is to bring free-trade agreements into force more quickly.
France and Italy, however, object on constitutional grounds and say trade texts must be drafted in their national languages. The dispute centers on the drafting and legal-scrubbing stage, not the final translation of treaties into the EU’s 24 official languages.
The Commission said, according to the FT, that using a single lingua franca for technical drafting would not bypass the obligation to translate the final agreement into all official EU languages.
Why it matters
The disagreement highlights a broader tension inside the EU between speed and legal-linguistic scrutiny. Brussels wants trade deals to move faster, but some member states see multilingual drafting as part of the legal and political safeguards built into the bloc’s treaties.
The issue also lands at a sensitive moment for EU trade policy, as officials look for ways to accelerate deals amid economic and geopolitical pressure. Šefčovič pointed to the EU-Mercosur agreement as an example of the cost of delay.
What happens next
It is not yet clear whether the Commission will formally table the English-first drafting change or keep it as an internal proposal. The Indonesia agreement may become the first test case if the idea moves forward.
France and Italy are also likely to keep pressing their objections in Council discussions, while the Commission may need to clarify how any change would fit EU language law.
Revision note
Initial automated publication.