Catalan is not progressing adequately in Europe

Catalan is not progressing adequately in Europe. With its claimed official status in institutions set aside – one of the conditions ERC, and especially Junts, imposed on Pedro Sánchez to invest him as president – the forceful arguments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) now arrive, endorsing the obligation of 25% Castilian in schools, as defended by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC).

This is not a case with legal and practical consequences – we are not facing a judgment – but that does not prevent it from being, in conceptual terms, a bucket of cold water in the battle for Catalan to be considered a European language with all rights. In fact, the ECHR, in this position, reduces the Catalan language to the category of a regional minority language, contrasting it with Castilian, to which it grants the status of a national and state language.

In fact, the ECHR describes Catalonia as a "bilingual region" – a bilingualism that the court ignores is increasingly asymmetrical in favor of Castilian – and considers linguistic immersion in school education as discrimination against non-Catalan speaking citizens.

The court is very clear in its justification for dismissing the lawsuit filed by families from Escola Turó del Drac in Canet de Mar, coordinated by Òmnium Cultural, against the TSJC ruling that obliges to teach at least 25% of classes in Castilian. Unanimously, the European magistrates consider the 25% Castilian quota to be absolutely necessary and justify it as follows: "Prohibiting the use of Castilian as a language of instruction would deprive Spanish citizens of their right to be educated in the national language." And also thus: "Receiving an education in the state language is crucial for facilitating students' equal access to the state educational system and for preserving the principle of unity of the educational system."

The ECHR's position is a blow to the waterline of Catalanism, which has always defended linguistic normalization precisely as the way for Spanish-speaking boys and girls to have the right to learn Catalan guaranteed, and therefore have more job, social and cultural opportunities in a bilingual country. Along these lines, the Minister of Linguistic Policy, Francesc Xavier Vila, has reacted to the ECHR by stating that in Catalonia "all students achieve full competence in the official languages, Catalan and Spanish". Something that, he added, would not happen without placing Catalan, marginalized in its own territory, at the "center of gravity" of schools and institutes.

Beyond this setback in Strasbourg for the aspirations to secure the future of Catalan, which is in clear decline in terms of social use, its legal status in schools will be decided by the Constitutional Court, where the ruling on the 25% in schools defended by the TSJC is pending. In this regard, after the fiasco of the appeal to the ECHR, Òmnium Cultural proposes to begin to "articulate a unitary and forceful response from the country in the face of the future ruling of the Constitutional Court".

The uncomfortable and harsh reality is that the longed-for refuge of Europe for Catalan, in the sense that it would counterbalance the incomprehension of the Spanish justice system, has not worked so far.