These are the (until now unknown) figures from the Ministry of Language Policy

BarcelonaThe unique funding was the flagship measure in exchange for which Esquerra voted to inaugurate Salvador Illa a year ago, but not the only one. The Republicans also managed to extract from the Socialists a commitment to create a new Ministry of Language Policy, which, moreover, would lead what was already responsible for the portfolio under Pere Aragonès's government, Minister Francesc Xavier Vila. So far, its allocation has not been made public, and the Catalan government avoided clarifying it by refusing to present a draft budget for 2024 that would put it in black and white. However, according to ARA, this budget is 75.4 million euros, according to data updated in August. A total of 8.5 million euros are for structural spending within the department, while the amount dedicated strictly to language policy is 66.9 million.

Does Salvador Illa's government dedicate more money to language than Pere Aragonès's? In the 2023 accounts, when Language Policy was still a general secretariat, the budget was 52.6 million (it reached 55.6 million with the latest extension). In the draft accounts that Aragonès submitted to Parliament in 2024, the then minister, Natàlia Garriga, proposed an increase to 63.4 million (from 2022 to 2023 its budget had already risen by 35%). These increases were channeled primarily toward the Consortium for Linguistic Normalization, the entity that promotes the learning of Catalan to gain new speakers. With the 75.4 million allocated to it by Salvador Illa's government, the portfolio registers an all-time high.

The Government reaffirms the National Pact

In any case, and when it comes to language, the figure that the Government claims when it comes to Catalan, however, is that of National Pact for LanguageThe pact provides for an annual investment of 255 million euros to ensure Catalan regains its speakers through cross-cutting measures, affecting several of the Catalan government's ministries, not just the Ministry of Language Policy. For example, the 78 million euros allocated to the reception classrooms will come from the Education budget, while the 2.2 million euros for research in Catalan will be allocated to the Universities budget. Hence, the figure the government claims to allocate to language promotion is higher than the budget of the department headed by Francesc Xavier Vila.

The PSC government inherited the National Language Pact from Garriga's ministry, whose spirit the Socialists always praised. Its passage in the first 100 days of the legislature was also an investiture commitment signed by the PSC and ERC, but the government preferred to delay it in order to try to involve as many stakeholders as possible. Ultimately, his attempt to get Junts, PP, or CUP to join failed. It's a thorn in the side of the president's side. as he himself admitted in the end-of-year review press conference, and has repeatedly asked these groups to reconsider that position.

Sports has a bigger budget

While the Catalan government has yet to publish the implementation data for all departments up to August, in June the Ministry of Language Policy had the lowest budget. This is reflected in the available monthly implementation report, when it stood at €70.4 million (from June to August, budget changes led to a five million increase).

At that time, Language Policy was ten million behind Sports (€82.4 million), the second-lowest budget. Third from the bottom is Equality and Feminisms, with €112.2 million, a ministry that Equality and Feminisms also sought to protect from the investiture pact for fear that the Socialists would dilute (or eliminate) the department. The allocation received by Equality and Feminisms is less than the €132 million allocated by the Aragonès government to the failed 2024 budget project. The project collapsed due to a veto by the Commons, which precipitated the calling of elections.

With data up to June 30, the departments of the Generalitat with the highest budgets are, as usual, Health (14.023 billion), Education (7.266 billion), and Territory (3.429 billion).