Mayor Albiol joins some demands of the National Pact for Language, the PP scolds him, Isla congratulates him and Albiol qualifies himself in Spanish and with a Spanish flag behind him to calm his party, but the image gain is already made. Albiol, who in 2023 won Badalona by beating his opponents with the enormous 55% of the votes (18 councilors for the PP, 4 for the PSC, 2 for ERC, 2 for the Comunes, no councilors for either Junts or Vox), is a candidate catch-all, which encompasses everything, and has already shown that it knows how to win votes for it, not only from its own supporters, but also from the anti-immigration, socialist, and pro-independence camps. In other words, if the party gets angry about the only major success it can boast in Catalonia, it will.
Meanwhile, President Sánchez and Minister Albares speak about Spain's multilingual reality, and regarding the official status of Catalan, Basque, and Galician in the EU, they say that Spain has been waiting 40 years for this moment. First news. The PSOE has needed to rely on the votes of pro-independence supporters to swear in Sánchez, allow the use of Catalan in Congress, and negotiate Catalan in Europe.
Albiol has spoken of the need to protect Catalan so that it doesn't become extinct, while recommending that the demand for Catalan not make it "an unfriendly language." A little care with your words. If your party and the media outlets affiliated with it have spent decades painting Catalan as a nuisance, and if the courts turn it into a problem (not to mention the anti-Catalan historical legacy, which is a given), then saying the language is unfriendly is tantamount to blaming the victim. Everyone knows the solution: languages are neither friendly nor unfriendly. They're either necessary or they're not. And for it to be necessary, Catalan must be as obligatory in Catalonia, the Valencian Community, and the Balearic Islands as Spanish is.
