Viviane Reding has not changed her views on the Irish language. As culture commissioner in the Romano Prodi commission, Ms Reding told The Irish Timesin 2004 that making Irish an official EU language "would not bring you a thing".

Instead of seeking official status for the language, she said: "You know what you should do in Ireland? Speak Irish, write Irish, be proud of Irish, use Irish in everyday language and show Irish culture to the 24 [ now 26] nations around you."

Now, six months after Irish became one of the EU's 23 official languages, Ms Reding, now media commissioner, says she has not changed her mind after the elevation of Irish to official status.

"I think national languages are the most beautiful things in the world but this doesn't mean that you should translate all documents into Luxembourgish," she says. "For me the issue is, are languages respected? Are their films and TV programmes in Gaelic?"

Ms Reding is from Luxembourg, which has not applied for official language status in the EU, even though Luxembourgish is spoken by most of the population. Her main concern with giving official status to languages such as Irish was the expense and potential delays to legislation caused by translation requirements.