 Among the Spanish population as a whole, Spanish is spoken by 98.9%, and 17.5% speak Catalan, 6.2% speak Galician, 5.8% speak Valencian and 3,0% speak Basque.Valencian and Catalan are regarded by most linguists and the European Union as the same language.The economic history of Spain has been described in terms of a regional imbalance between a progressive periphery and a stagnant centre.