Within the last twenty years, the Government of the Basque County has produced many texts on language planning and language policy. Some of the most noteworthy documents are the General Plan for Promoting Basque (EBPN, 1999) and the brief essay Towards a Renewed Agreement (2009), which set the basis for the language policy at the beginning of the 21st Century. After the Normalisation Law (1982), legislation on several aspects of bilingualism has been further developed, including the private business sector. Since 1991 a Sociolinguistic Survey has been carried out every five years in order to know the level of linguistic competence and the usage of languages in the Basque Country. Basic information about the first language of citizens is also included in this survey. In 2011 the Basque Government has completed an indicators-based study on the current situation and evolution of Basque.

In the Basque Country school is now far more important than family as far as transmission of the Basque language is concerned. Basque is the language of instruction chosen by 60 percent of parents when deciding how their children will be educated, whether they speak Basque or not and whether Basque is alive in their area/town or not (moreover, 22% opt for a bilingual model and the rest, 18%, choose Basque as a school subject). In pre-primary education the percentage of parents who choose Basque for their children is even higher, which means that Spanish monolinguals are about to become extinct amongst children under six. 

The main problem concerning school is that children whose mother tongue is Spanish identify Basque mainly with homework. They give up speaking Basque as soon as they are outside of school. Usually children from Spanish-speaking areas speak only Spanish at home or in the street, unless at least one of the parents is a Basque speaker. In such circumstances, they rarely feel confident or comfortable using the language learnt at school. Nevertheless, as mentioned above, school has become crucial to the revitalisation of the language.

In primary as well as secondary education a foreign language must be learned. Although the vast majority of schools offer English as the first foreign language, other languages, such as French or German, can be learned too.

With regard to university, 45% of students at the University of the Basque Country currently study in Basque, so the situation of Basque in the university sector is much better now compared to thirty years ago. At graduate and especially postgraduate levels English is progressively introduced into study programmes.

In vocational education multilingual profiles are also emerging, but at a slower rate. For instance, Basque is chosen as a language for instruction by only 25% of students.

In the Basque Country there is one country-wide newspaper and nearly 50 regional or local magazines published entirely in Basque. There are also two public TV channels which broadcast exclusively in Basque (and some local channels that also do so). The presence of other languages, apart from the official ones, in publications accessible to Basque citizens is progressively growing, but the situation still reflects a moderate interest in foreign languages.

Public services are commonly offered in Spanish and Basque, the two official languages of the Basque Country. In some cases (translation services, primary attention to immigrants, etc.) other languages are also used, such as English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Georgian or Wolof.

Basque companies are trying to integrate language-management practices into their daily work. This aspect of their business strategy goes far beyond official bilingualism, as other languages, mainly, but not exclusively, English, are absolutely necessary for their relationships with companies all over the world. An aspect that should be improved is the promotion of language competencies among employees.

It seems that the Basque Country exhibits comparatively strong multilingual profiles in primary and secondary education for Spanish, Basque and the main foreign languages (with English in top position). However, immigrant languages, for instance, have a very weak or non existent presence in the educational system.

In higher education, printed media, public services and private companies, multilingual profiles are emerging at quite a fast rate. This shall be improved and consolidated in the future by the development of an adequate educational basis oriented towards multilingualism.

Multilingualism is a challenge for a society which is far from being 100% bilingual. The gradual move towards a bilingual society must therefore be combined with the growing need and demand for multilingual strategies. One of these strategies is already on track: a pilot has been developed to introduce a trilingual framework into primary and secondary education. Around 120 schools have adopted this new framework, which will probably extend to the entire educational system eventually.

Within the realm of new technologies, a big effort is currently being directed towards creating a machine-translation system that can translate texts and websites from Spanish and English to Basque and vice versa. This new tool will be based on a powerful grammatical analyser and a big public repository of translation memories.

The goal of these (and other) initiatives is not easy to achieve, but it is, at the same time, a very attractive one: to develop and strengthen multilingual profiles in a society that wants and is trying to increase the use of Basque, the socio-linguistically weakest language.

Euskara Biziberritzeko Plan Nagusia / Plan general de Promoción del Uso del Euskera (EBPN), Vitoria-Gasteiz, Eusko Jaurlaritza/Gobierno Vasco, 1999.

Euskararen egoerari eta bilakaerari buruzko adierazleak / Indicadores de situación y evolución del euskera, Viceconsejería de Política Lingüística, 2011. [http://www.euskara.euskadi.net/r59-738/es/contenidos/informacion/argitalpenak/es_6092/adjuntos/ebpn_txostena/EBPN%20Txostena%20cast.pdf].

Fourth Sociolinguistic Survey (2006), Vitoria-Gasteiz, Eusko Jaurlaritza/Gobierno Vasco, 2008.

Itun berritu baterantz / Hacia un pacto renovado, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Eusko Jaurlaritza/Gobierno Vasco, 2009 [English version: http://www.euskara.euskadi.net/r59-738/es/contenidos/informacion/7041/es_ 2447/adjuntos/Maketa-Pacto_Baja-1eng%202.pdf].