Anti-Catalan offensive in Menorca

Citadel / PalmaMenorca is the Balearic island where Catalan is most widely spoken in the streets and where the most families choose it as the primary language of instruction in schools, but it is also where it is now most threatened by the administration. The PP's strategic alliance with representatives expelled from Vox and the appointment of the former director of Sa Fundació, the organization that denies the unity of the language, as Minister of Culture have provoked a gradual struggle against standard Catalan. This is a decision that no one in Menorca had ever questioned, not even the PP.

The first step was to preferentially subsidize the use of Menorcan and signage in public tenders. The latest, so far, has been to completely overhaul the Consell Insular's language regulations to also include Spanish and prioritize Menorcan in in-person services and the publication of notices, communications, and regulations. The councilor even reserves the option of outsourcing linguistic advice and, to ensure no one can question him, has eliminated the monitoring committee that decided how to apply the regulations to the institution, becoming the sole supervisor of the new rules himself. Without the support of the Linguistic Advisory Service (SAL) or its main academic body, the Menorcan Institute of Studies (IME), the history professor and graduate whom the PP snatched from the far-right parties before the elections has been transferred as their new Minister of Culture. Joan Pons Torres (Ciutadella, 1993), who wants to have Menorcan declared intangible cultural heritage, has also ensured that public bodies dependent on the council use the definite article in their social media posts. The Fem-ho en Català association has opposed and denounced the fierce campaign being waged to denormalize the language, but the Minister has left on the table the three internal reports—two linguistic and one legal—that recommend heeding the organization's advice and using the literary article. Their conclusion is clear: social media is also part of the institution's publicity, which is legally obligated to use the standard form in all its public communications.

"He doesn't want to defend our way of speaking, but rather reduce the potential of the language we share with ten million people," argues the Fem-ho en Català association, which accuses Pons of wanting to "folklorize the language to reduce and degrade it to a merely local expression."

The transformation has been sudden. This has been happening since the summer of 2023, when the right wing regained control of the Menorca Island Council and the former director of Sa Fundació took over the Culture department. Before the elections, Joan Pons was a vocal critic of Marga Prohens's People's Party (PP). "She's a Catalan nationalist; all her Twitter is in standard Catalan," he denounced in April 2022 on his YouTube channel, referring to the PP leader's social media accounts: "She's the one who will defend the interests of Balearic culture against pan-Catalanism."

Even before holding public office, Pons frequently expressed his anti-Catalan views in the press, favoring the toponym Mahó over the standard Maó and stating that "Castilian is not the enemy," but rather Catalan. "From Catalonia, they deny us the linguistic unity of Balearic and Valencian, which are very old and well-documented." He also aligned himself with Vox in rejecting historical memory laws and legislation in favor of feminism and LGBTI+ rights. Since arriving at the Menorca Island Council, and with the support of former Vox councilor (now independent) Maite de Medrano, he has taken a sharp turn against standard Catalan. De Medrano, the only councilor in Ciutadella who opposed naming the municipal library after the writer Joan López Casasnovas, arguing that "he was an activist for linguistic normalization," believes that "the Catalan Countries don't exist, and Catalan isn't native to the Balearic Islands, but rather" belongs to them. The independent councilor rejects "Catalan imperialism" and says that "normalization is absurd and nonsensical, preventing real freedom of language choice." The unity of the language

With their support, the PP has secured the absolute majority in the Island Council that the ballot box denied them and has been able to push through policies that undermine, even at the territorial level, what is known as the Menorcan model. The person in charge of defending it in plenary sessions is Joan Pons himself, now the government spokesperson and, as one political opponent describes him, "an exponent of Trumpism, Menorcan style." "He makes a false defense of the island's regional variations and goes overboard, because he uses the definite article 'salted' when it wouldn't matter there."

"What they want is to use Menorcan as a weapon to dismantle its normalization," concludes Noemí García, spokesperson for Més in the Council. "I wouldn't even need three gin and tonics to swallow it," she quips. "The Menorcan PP is very pro-Spanish. The regionalist soul of the Mallorcan PP doesn't exist in Menorca," says MP Josep Castells, for whom the Consell is "held hostage by this man's ultra-nationalist ideology." But the Balearic PP claims not to be bothered. Although President Marga Prohens has no doubts about the unity of the language, the need to have Vox in Parliament means she agrees to debate several initiatives close to the "Gonellist" approach of the Parliament's president, Gabriel Le Senne (Vox), such as requesting a report from the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) on the possibility of maintaining the definite article for speakers in public discourse. Journal of Proceedings"We have no friction with the Menorcan PP," sources from the Balearic Government point out. "Their position is compatible with the party as long as the language normalization law and the minimum standards decree are maintained," they explain. In fact, they emphasize that, like Joan Pons, President Prohens "is also in favor of defending and promoting the use of the linguistic varieties of the Islands."