Marta Salicrú, director of Radio Primavera Sound, will be Barcelona's first language commissioner.

BarcelonaThe journalist Marta Salicrú, who was previously the director of Radio Primavera Sound, has been chosen as the first language commissioner for Barcelona City Council, according to ARA. She will report directly to Mayor Jaume Collboni. This position emerges from the stability pact between the PSC and ERC, in which they agreed to create three commissioners in the areas of tourism (where José Donaire has been appointed), rehabilitation, and language policy.

The appointment comes at a time of tension, following the controversy over the Catalanophobic spectacle for which the City Council had to apologizeThe commissioner will have to lead policies for the protection and promotion of Catalan to counteract its decline in social use, especially in the metropolitan capital. So far, The municipal government has been approving, but at the same time sleeping, the attempts by ERC and Junts to promote an emergency plan to defend Catalan.

The choice of Salicrú, a journalist specializing in music, podcasts, and pop culture and a figure previously unrelated to linguistic activism, seems to respond to the City Council's desire to influence the promotion of the Catalan language in the digital environment and among young people. In fact, ERC promoted a commission non-binding to discuss youth and technology and last January a hub of content, technology, and language creators, with the aim of specializing in innovative audiovisual production. This digital content factory in Catalan would be based in a space near Betevé and Barcelona Activa, in Poblenou.

Collboni's plenary commitments also include the creation of the Catalan Language Office, endowed with 4 million euros, which should deploy the political lines agreed by the commissioner, in addition to the eighty proposals that are pending. This appointment today could be just the first stone. The latest plenary agreement on language promoted by ERC is the creation of the Barcelona Catalan Language Council, an advisory body in which language entities will participate and which should be translated into sectoral tables in each district, and which would monitor the policies implemented.

Music journalist Marta Salicrú (Barcelona, 1980) has directed the Primavera Sound festival radio station for the last six years and has produced widely-received podcasts nationwide, such as Total Ideal Weekly Deformed (Ondas Award 2021) and has also hosted podcasts in Catalan such as Shitty People, Inside, Romesco Sauce and Pleasures of lifeShe was editor and editor-in-chief of Time Out Barcelona for eleven years (2008-2019). She is a disc jockey and author of the biography Rosalía from A to Z (Dome, 2024) and of Fucking generational anthems (Columna, 2015). She has been a speaker and coordinator for various competitions, series, and shows, a media contributor, and a university lecturer in the fields of pop culture and podcasts. She holds a degree in humanities and journalism from Pompeu Fabra University.