Catalan: ten million voices

Let Sánchez and Puigdemont be, and let their support for the legislature be. It's hard to understand why, at this point, a language spoken by more than ten million European citizens, present in Spain, France, Italy, and Andorra—four European states that are members of the euro, three of them members of the Union—and with a modern and vibrant culture, continues to be unofficial in the European Union. Catalan has more speakers than Danish, Finnish, Croatian, or Slovenian, and far surpasses two languages that do enjoy full status: Maltese and Irish Gaelic. Maltese, spoken by around 450,000 people, has been an official language of the EU since 2004, when the country joined the Union. Irish Gaelic, with around 200,000 speakers, was recognized in 2007, although Ireland had already joined the EU years before.

A European language does not need to be the majority language in a member state to be an official language in Brussels: Ireland has two official languages in the EU, as does Malta. The important thing is not which is the "main language" of a state, but which languages its citizens want to see represented. When we demand the recognition of Catalan through a member state, it seems like we are asking for something that is not ours, as if we had to beg for a right that, in reality, would be an act of justice and civic coherence, not politics. Catalan would occupy, in the ranking of official languages, thirteenth place out of a total of twenty-five languages.

Being an official language of the EU isn't a symbolic concession; it means being able to address European institutions in one's own language, see laws and public announcements translated, and participate in educational, cultural, or technological programs in the language of a territory that, in terms of area, would be more than ten member states that currently enjoy these rights. Why should a member state ask for this? Where is the Europe of the regions we were promised?

Spain has offered to assume the costs of translation and interpretation, so the economic argument no longer makes sense. We're talking twenty million euros annually. A joke in the general state budget. Europe isn't weakened by recognizing its languages; on the contrary, it's strengthened. Because diversity is not a threat, but the very essence of its identity. After Brexit, Europe is a veritable Tower of Babel. If we eliminate English, no language has more than 29% of speakers. Joan Maragall would have written: "Listen, Europe, to the voice of a son who speaks to you in Catalan..." More than a century later, Europe cannot remain indifferent to that voice. It's not Sánchez's. It's that of more than ten million Europeans.