What is happening with Catalan in Europe?
The objective of making Catalan an official language in the European institutions is crucial and it is necessary to persist until it is achieved. Having started the race and having the State government in favour is already a success in itself. It is important to be clear about this. Catalan has become a community portfolio with strong arguments, both quantitative (number of speakers) and qualitative (cultural relevance). It will not be easy to achieve it, as was already said when Junts and the PSOE closed the first pact, but it will not be easy to let it go either. The path has begun and is irreversible.
It is true that time is running out and that there are no significant advances. The Hungarian presidency has meant a paralysis for Catalan, but also for many other policies. We must continue. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jaume Duch, with a lot of experience in the European Parliament, He claims in an interview with the ARA depoliticise the language and present the claim as a question of linguistic rights. It makes strategic sense: official status will not be achieved until it is endorsed by all twenty-seven EU member states and, therefore, a broad consensus will be necessary, only possible if it is removed from any connotation of partisan or ideological conflict.
This same consensus must accompany the demand from Catalonia. We cannot play at fighting with the language: the objective of officialdom in Europe must include all Catalan nationalism and even beyond. It is not against anyone. Of course it is not against Spanish. It is a question of Europeanism, of understanding Europe in all its diversity.
Right now it does not seem possible, but it cannot be ruled out that one day the Balearic and Valencian governments will join the proposal. The fact that the socialist government of Catalonia and the also socialist government of Spain go hand in hand on this matter sends a message. It is not a nationalist or regional proposal, it is a transversal and state-wide demand. An aspiration, moreover, that comes from afar, historically. Precisely these days Josep Pallach has been vindicated, a figure of European socialism of anti-Francoism and the Transition, very well connected with the German SPD, and who always defended the importance of Catalan. Today in Pallach, Isla, Pujol and Aragonès are claiming it. This is the spirit that we need for our own language to be accepted and defended in Europe: a great plurality behind or before the language.
The day that European recognition finally arrives, it will be a boost for its use in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community. We already know that it is difficult to add new speakers, making immigration adopt Catalan is not easy. The European endorsement will not be the panacea, but it will certainly help in this regard. Which does not mean that it is not necessary to continue working from the school, the media, civil society and the administrations. Today we also explain in the newspaper the efforts being made on municipal landThere is a lot of work to be done, work that today has greater visibility and public guarantees thanks to the fact that, since the investiture agreement between ERC and Illa, the Government has had a Ministry of Language Policy for the first time.
