Finally, we have a National Language Pact. We must congratulate the president of the Generalitat and his Minister of Language Policy for achieving their goal, and we must downplay the tantrum of Junts, which failed to distinguish the strategic value of the Plan from its tactical interests. In reality, it's nothing new that a party that defends the protection of Catalan would decide not to support an initiative to protect Catalan; it's enough to remember that in 1997, Esquerra voted against the language policy law.
Speaking of absences, one that hasn't been widely discussed but is worth considering is that of the Spanish government. Safeguarding Catalan is not only the exclusive responsibility of the Generalitat (Catalan government); it is also the responsibility of the State. Many measures in the National Plan depend directly or indirectly on state prerogatives, policies, or attitudes, so it is surprising that the Catalan authorities haven't involved the Spanish authorities, even symbolically, such as by inviting the Minister of Culture to the signing ceremony or even allowing him to speak. If before the signing of the Pact, Isla's government was already "the most pro-Spanish in history," it didn't come from that.
But let's leave aside the presences and absences and talk about the content of the Plan. In some cases, the Plan provides solemnity to strengthen what we already have. Catalan, for example, will continue to be the normal vehicular language of the education system, which is precisely what Law 8/2022, on which the Constitutional Court must rule, states. On this point, we must cross our fingers that the court doesn't throw away the laborious pact that made it possible for the Catalan legislature to accept that Spanish is also (can be) a vehicular language (for curricular and educational use, according to the agreed euphemism). (The Constitutional Court must also rule on the decree law that Pere Aragonès's government conjured up, which establishes the "non-application" [sic] of numerical parameters in the language projects of educational centers, which are currently prohibited from saying things like "one" subject will be taught in Spanish.)
The Plan's merit, obviously, lies in the measures that impact areas where the use of Catalan is not guaranteed or established. Signing the Pact wasn't the most difficult part: the most difficult part will be implementing it, especially in the structurally more complicated areas, where success doesn't depend exclusively on how many thousands of euros are allocated.
One of the most prominent examples is the healthcare sector. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the approval of a document that bears similarities to the National Plan. We are referring to the General Plan for Linguistic Normalization, which contained multiple sectors, areas, objectives, and measures. The objective of the "healthcare and healthcare world" area was to "promote linguistic normalization in healthcare and healthcare institutions, guaranteeing the use of Catalan in all public services and in the care of users." The reference to "linguistic normalization" betrays the era in which it was written, but if we ignore the term, the objective is not essentially different from that stated in the National Plan, which is to "guarantee the linguistic rights of patients [...] and achieve the normal use of Catalan as the professional language of the sector." Will we achieve in the next five years, which is the Plan's target, what we have not achieved in the last 30? Let us remember, moreover, that the healthcare sector is not a difficult area only for Catalan. A rather instructive example is Swedish in Finland, which is not just any regional or minority language but one of the country's two official languages. In 2001, in the first assessment of compliance with the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Finland, the Committee of Experts already found that healthcare in Swedish, guaranteed by law, was not provided in practice, and the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe issued a recommendation. In 2024, in the latest assessment, we were right there: despite the plans developed by the Finnish authorities, healthcare in Swedish was still not provided, and the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe issued, for the sixth time in a row over 24 years, the same recommendation:Take further measures to ensure the effective use of Swedish in social and health care services". In short: welcome the Plan, yes, but let's not mistake it for a talisman.
