Francesc Xavier Vila: "It is nonsense to say that it is racist to link regularization and language"

BarcelonaThis week, the Minister of Linguistic Policy, Francesc Xavier Vila, has taken stock of the first year of the National Pact for Language and has presented to Parliament the highest budget in history allocated to language.taken stock of the first year of the National Pact for Language and has presented to Parliament the highest budget in history allocated to language.

With 126 million euros allocated to linguistic policy, tell me three concrete priorities for this year.

— fields of the National Pact for Languageareas of the National Pact for Language.

One of the new features this week is the creation of the Office for the Protection of Linguistic Rights. I understand that most of the time it will involve the administration correcting situations in which the administration itself has acted incorrectly.

— We must learn to improve from all points of view. We have legislation that in some aspects is solid, in others it is confusing, and we have different dynamics in the departments. The first thing we must do is bring coherence and order to it. We must understand the citizenry better: if complaints about linguistic issues have increased, we need the population to feel accompanied in these procedures. One of the tasks this office will have is to consider whether we have the necessary legal framework, we will be able to produce reports, we will be able to see where it is suffered most, where the population has expectations that do not align with the regulations.

Last year there were 3,600 complaints for linguistic violations. What will be done with these complaints? Because the pact does not specify sanctions and, as we published in ARA, Health has not imposed any fine because it does not even have specific regulation to impose one.

— Here we have one of the areas in which we surely need to improve regarding regulations. In any case, I would like to remind you that 2025 is the year with the most actions by the Catalan Consumer Agency. Therefore, it is not that the administration is not acting, but rather that it has acted following this growth rate [of complaints], which I believe is linked to a change in perception.

Which?

— For a long time, the Catalan-speaking population took for granted that not being attended to in Catalan was part of the package and, therefore, that they had to change language in many circumstances. I believe that this has changed in recent years and, in part, it has to do with the fact that we have put the language on the political agenda and on the media agenda. And, therefore, there are more people who can consider whether it is normal that in certain areas there are people who have the right to live in monolingualism and people who cannot exercise this same prerogative. The National Pact for Language clearly states that Catalan is not yet fully official, neither de iure nor de facto. We must find formulas, if possible, the kindest ones, to move towards this full official status.

Above all, the Pact focuses on the de facto, rather than on reforming pre-existing legislation.

— And in interpreting the regulations we have more appropriately because, sometimes, it has traditionally been interpreted in a more lax way.

Why has this happened until now? Why had a large part of the population taken for granted that it was normal to have to change language?

— Because Catalan has been a marginalized language for 300 years and Catalan speakers have reached a very high level of bilingualism, of learning the other official language. If you add one thing to the other, everything led to think that it was a matter of good manners to behave in a certain way, without realizing that, in reality, it is that Catalan speakers had been educated to switch languages, because they had assumed that was what needed to be done. What we need now is to modify this approach and make people understand that it is legitimate to expect that people who come to live in Catalonia also, out of politeness, make an effort to incorporate themselves into learning and using the language and not always expect that it is a few who switch languages. 300 years is a lot, yes. This is learned and passed down from parents to children, it is learned at the bus stop, at the school gate when you see how parents behave, when you see your father or mother switch languages when they see a person with a certain attire, unconsciously, without bad faith, not out of a desire to discriminate but out of a routine acquired over a long time. Is it difficult to break? Yes. But we are adult people who have the capacity to make decisions and can evolve towards much more welcoming and much more integrating behaviors.

If Catalan is learned on the street, a key area is the world of work. Considering that the country grows by about 100,000 foreigners a year and that more than half of the new jobs since the pandemic have been filled by people from abroad, why has there been no progress on this front so far?

— I would put it the other way around. Given how fundamental it is to the future of the language, why has so little attention been paid to it throughout history? It was expected that with school, TV3, and high culture, the population that arrived would gradually integrate. Well, things don't work like that. Countries with significant migratory flows must make an effort to ensure that workplaces become tools for social inclusion and linguistic integration. We have taken a long time to do this. Well, now we are getting our act together and this year we have already achieved an agreement between employers and unions, which will soon be presented.

Are there reservations from employers' organizations?

— We are entering uncharted territory; therefore, everyone thinks we need to be careful. It won't be like putting up a highway and we'll take off. But at the same time, I believe that both unions and employers are fully aware that this country needs to make a very important commitment to the integration of people who have come from abroad, not just superficially, a few hours at work and then we forget about them. We need to make them our own, we need them to integrate also into the work culture that has shaped Catalonia. Employers know all this and say so.

What is the objective? Catalan as a labor requirement and a language that can be learned at work?

— It will have to do with training, with the right to use, with communication, with awareness-raising, with the role that language plays within the mechanisms of social advancement. We always complain that Catalan has lost its connection to the social elevator. This is not entirely true. What has really happened to us is that we have a more fragmented society in terms of work. There are environments where Catalan is not connected to the social elevator, because there are environments where, in fact, neither is Spanish, probably. They are encapsulated in jobs that have no possibility of going further. On the other hand, in other environments, you cannot enter if you do not have a good level of Catalan. It is not the only factor, but Catalan continues to be linked to social promotion.

This year, the teaching of Catalan to adults has been promoted, with a record number of places to learn Catalan. However, the majority are of very low levels, are related to the residency papers of newcomers, and are not translated into use. How can the record investment of 54.2 million be seen in reality on the streets?

— We must achieve more intermediate level offerings and at the same time we must grow horizontally outside the classrooms to advance much further in the use of the language. Historically, the Consortium for Linguistic Normalization has had to pay a lot of attention only to the most basic part of the learning pyramid [levels A1 and A2]. Now that we have the base fairly covered, first we must ensure regularization and the linguistic impacts it has and, secondly, offer more of the following levels [B and C]. The other way is to incentivize the use and learning of the language in the workplace. A language that is useful at work is a language that gains possibilities of being used spontaneously. We need to increase the situations where routines address you in Catalan. We need more social referents to teach how to take this step, from the classroom to autonomous use. We want to work so that entities, such as educational leisure, learn to integrate linguistically.

Is it legitimate to ask for Catalan to be a requirement for the regularization of immigrants or is it racist, as some parties have said?

— It is absurd to say that it is racist, basically because in all European countries there are links between regularization processes and language learning. The reasoning must be reversed: can there really be integration if there is no language learning process? Some would prefer a multicultural society with separate bubbles in which Catalan would be just one small bubble. Those of us who have a more intercultural perspective believe that, with each person contributing their richness, society must share the historical and proper language of the country. The clearer it is that the process of integration and social inclusion is a package of rights and duties and that yes, you are expected to also learn Catalan and become a user of Catalan wherever you deem appropriate, I believe it will be simpler to succeed in the integration of a society that is currently very diverse.

Why did the Government present an amendment to the Spanish royal decree so that Catalan is a requirement and, on the other hand, in Parliament the PSC rejected requesting A2 Catalan for permit renewals?

— I believe it was a game to try to expose the Government and that if we discuss it calmly, we can reach a consensual model. We presented an amendment to the State government, requesting that the requirement to demonstrate a level of language learning be included in the first renewal. The level is what needs to be discussed. The Spanish government accepted it with two exceptions, vulnerable people and people who, since they will be looking for work, should in principle be included in training programs. Within these programs, we should include language learning.

The school is another of the focuses of debate. Would you say that the complexity of the school has caused it to lose its Catalanizing potential? Because there are even those who find that it is a Spanish-speaking space for Catalan-speaking students.

— The school has less potential for student training now than it did 40 years ago. One of the consequences is that in those contexts where Catalanization depended basically on the school, it has indeed lost capacity. The school has changed a lot. There is a crisis of vocation worldwide. The education model has changed and now teachers have a less central role within classrooms, which generates challenges regarding language acquisition. A lot of space has been left to screens...

Do you understand that there are those who advocate for the withdrawal of Catalan speakers into more monolingual spaces?

— I don't think it's quite right. The problem isn't just the density of Catalan speakers. The problem is also about role models. Our children arrive at school with a daily immersion in Spanish on screens. This means that even in more Catalan-speaking environments, there are cases of adopting Spanish as a language of interaction. Therefore, retreat is not the solution. The solution is to reverse this trend, strengthening the school's role as a tool for transmitting and acquiring the language and rethinking the role of screens in our children's education. Our educational centers must commit to early acquisition of the Catalan language and to promoting Catalan as a language among peers from the outset. We are working to rethink the immersion model at very early levels and are taking advantage of the 50th anniversary of La Bressola to make known a model in which, with 2% of Catalan-speaking students, Catalan becomes the language among peers without adult supervision. If this is possible in the context of the North, it must be possible in other centers. But to do this, we need much more collective commitment, from families, educators, the administration, and more resources.

Will there be another office for the digital field endowed with 50 million?

— 50 million in three years. It will be a unit within the general directorate of the technological and audiovisual field that will be dedicated to digital content.

President Illa and some councilors have received criticism for giving speeches in Spanish in Catalonia. This week it was a councilor from the PSC in the Ripoll plenary session. Has he had to give linguistic guidelines to the government council?

— Some colleagues from the Government have asked me some questions at times. We have worked with usage criteria, but not only for senior officials but also for the Generalitat as a whole. We need the administration to be exemplary. But I remember that one thing is when we address Catalan society and another thing is when we are making interventions abroad. All world leaders, when addressing other countries, use combinations of languages.

He is developing a protocol to provide clear guidance. What will be the basic idea of this guide?

— That Catalan is the normal vehicular language of use in Catalonia within a regime of three official languages, in which Catalan is the native language of Catalonia as a whole and Aranese in Aran. The legislation states that citizens have the right to adopt the language and the administration has the duty of availability.

This week Girona published its linguistic usage survey. Girona is supposed to be a bastion of Catalan. What do you think about 40% of people from Girona not speaking Catalan?

— Girona is subjected to the same phenomena as the whole territory. There have been very important migratory movements and the children of Girona, like those of any other territory, have access to the internet and are also subjected to the same pressures. However, Girona and a good part of the Girona regions have a more solid linguistic integration capacity than other regions. They have more possibilities and, therefore, more responsibility. There is a lot of room for improvement and we must take advantage of it.

What is this margin? What do you think should be the objective of Catalan in terms of use and, if possible, let's put percentages on it.

— What we need is for the number of new users of the language to be greater than the population growth, because that way we would be regaining ground.

Until when, until what percentage?

— A linguistic community can be sustained by different factors. It doesn't just depend on the percentage of users. We need there to be numbers, we need there to be interconnections, we need there to be awareness. There are cases throughout history of language recovery from very little or practically zero to becoming majorities.

Being realistic, what percentage of regular Catalan users would be a normalized situation?

— 50 is better than 45, and 60 is better than 50, and 25 is better than 20, and 88 is better than 80. It doesn't just depend on a percentage. The Basques started with very low percentages and by making sound decisions, they have managed to go to areas like Bilbao, where Basque was not heard, to Vitoria, where Basque was not heard 40 years ago, and you see young people speaking Basque among themselves. And they were much lower than us. Therefore, this is possible. What have they achieved? They have given it instrumental value and symbolic value. So much so that Basque has become associated with social progress, with job opportunities, and this has meant that, instead of falling back, they have moved forward. If they have been able to do it from a lower starting point than us, we will surely be able to do it.