On February 18, the first follow-up meeting of the National Pact for Language was held. According to the government of the Generalitat, by that date, 71 measures had already been completed and 124 more were in the process of execution. Now that the first anniversary of the signing of the Pact is due, it is likely that the government will update this quantitative assessment without delving too deeply into the substance of the matter. The question, in reality, is not how many measures of the Plan have been applied or are being applied, but to what extent the Plan has changed the statu quo that justified the approval of the Plan to begin with.If the question is this, the answer is easy. One year of validity is not enough time for a government to reverse a state of affairs that comes from afar and which was further aggravated during the years of the Process, when doing independence in Spanish seemed more urgent than safeguarding Catalan. This does not mean, however, that a reflection can be made on the progress of the Plan one year after its signing.The Plan has an original problem, which is the gap between the diagnosis of the situation of Catalan and the treatment to improve it. The Plan identifies five challenges or causes of the "decline" of Catalan in recent decades, the main one of which "is found in a set of economic factors and their socio-demographic consequences". This challenge includes "the transformation of a large part of the country's economic structure in recent decades" and, closely linked to this transformation, "the enormous [sic] migratory flows and the conditions for their social, labor and linguistic insertion".To face this challenge, the Pact only proposes palliative measures. In its assessment of the first year, for example, it is likely that the government will boast about the thousands of places for Catalan courses newly created at the Consortium for Linguistic Normalization; the reality is that the problem cannot be solved (only) by increasing the number of Catalan course places.To begin with, there is a purely numerical consideration. According to the latest Survey of Language Use by the Population (2023), there are 2 million people in Catalonia interested in learning Catalan or improving their knowledge of it: for obvious reasons of resources, Catalonia cannot create 2 million places to meet this potential demand. Beyond this observation, there is also a possible error in expectations. The Plan assumes a sequence of lack of knowledge – learning – use that is often not fulfilled. On the one hand, many learners abandon their studies halfway through, and what is particularly remarkable is that many learners leave the country before ever using Catalan and are replaced by other learners who may also not take root. According to the study Los límites de la inmigración para el ajuste demográfico en España, published by Funcas a fortnight ago, between 2002 and 2024 Spain welcomed 15 million people born abroad, half of whom left the country again.

Last month this newspaper published an interview at Nicolas LevratThe UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues, who recently completed a study visit to the European Union, was asked if Catalan is in danger. Levrat responded unequivocally: "No, my opinion is no; in the European Union there are many other languages ​​that are in much greater danger than Catalan." No, Catalan is not in danger. However, for some time now, the perception of Catalan society regarding the future of Catalan has entered a pessimistic spiral. The latest CEO Longitudinal Survey, released on March 5, reveals the speed with which this perception has worsened. Currently, 52% of those interviewed believe that Catalan will be used less in the immediate future than it is today, compared to 48% in 2024 and 42% in 2023. That the perception has worsened is undeniable; the question that should be asked is whether reality has also worsened to such an extent.

In the last general policy debate in Parliament, President Salvador Illa said that the National Pact for Language is one of the most significant milestones his government has achieved. Illa did not say whether the creation of the Department of Language Policy is also a milestone; whether or not I consider it a milestone, it may be appropriate to attempt an assessment a year after the department's creation.

As expected, the European Union's General Affairs Council this Friday failed to approve the official status of Catalan, Galician, and Basque in the European institutions. Everything indicates that the request made by the Spanish government nearly two years ago has entered a hibernation phase. Realistically speaking, in the short term, the only circumstances that could improve the status of Catalan in the institutions are an agreement by the European Parliament's bureau to allow its use in the European Parliament and, above all, the signing of the Association Agreement between Andorra and the EU, which, among other things, would require the translation of a significant number of European laws into Catalan.

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.

On November 1, 2024, the canopy of the recently renovated Novi Sad train station collapsed, killing 15 people. The renovation work had been opaquely awarded to a consortium of Chinese companies. The tragic accident sparked a protest movement, first in Novi Sad and then throughout Serbia, denouncing widespread corruption, media censorship, the concentration of power, the influence of Russia and Chinese capital, and the repression of dissent. It's no joke: in December, a demonstration as large as those that precipitated Milosevic's downfall took place in Belgrade, and on Saturday, it was the largest in the country's history.

On November 1, 2024, the canopy of the recently renovated Novi Sad train station collapsed, killing 15 people. The renovation work had been opaquely awarded to a consortium of Chinese companies. The tragic accident sparked a protest movement, first in Novi Sad and then throughout Serbia, denouncing widespread corruption, media censorship, the concentration of power, the influence of Russia and Chinese capital, and the repression of dissent. It's no joke: in December, a demonstration as large as those that precipitated Milosevic's downfall took place in Belgrade, and on Saturday, it was the largest in the country's history.