catalan language

Despite Catalonia-based prosecutors having concluded that there is no legal basis for such a complaint, the Director of the Public Prosecution Office, Eduardo Torres-Dulce – directly appointed by the Spanish Government – will finally file it, after 10 days of controversy. All the opposition parties have accused the Spanish Government of pressuring Torres-Dulce and taking a political problem to court. In addition, the Catalan Government accuses Rajoy’s People’s Party (PP) of not respecting the separation of powers. On Monday, the Catalan prosecutors announced they were not backing the complaint, but the Madrid-based Director stated he would carry on anyway. On Wednesday, Torres-Dulce held a long meeting with Spain’s main prosecutors, who backed him but not unanimously. The complaint will be against the Catalan President, Artur Mas, but also against the Vice President, Joana Ortega, and the Education Minister, Irene Rigau.

The Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, downplayed November 9's participatory process and he totally rejected the opportunity to negotiate the organisation of a mutually-agreed self-determination referendum for Catalonia. After 2.3 million citizens gave their opinion on independence on Sunday, on Wednesday Rajoy spoke in public for the first time and said he considered November 9's non-binding vote to be "a deep failure of the pro-independence project", as "2 out of every 3 Catalans did not bother to participate in it", dishonestly ignoring the Spanish Government's threats and obstacles and mixing up figures. Furthermore, he rejected the offer to negotiate sent by the President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas. Rajoy strongly criticised Mas for pretending to "impose" dialogue about "an illegal defiance". In addition, the Spanish PM did not offer any political solution for Catalonia's situation, except for totally blocking any Constitutional Reform. All parties in Catalonia were extremely disappointed by Rajoy's words, except of course the PP's Catalan branch.

On Sunday, Catalans are being called to give their opinion about independence in a participatory process, organised by the Catalan Government in cooperation with more than 40,000 volunteers and many town halls, which replaces the original consultation vote also scheduled for the 9^th of November. The Spanish Government appealed against the first vote, the Constitutional Court suspended it, the Catalan Government launched an alternative process and the Spanish Government filed a new appeal, accepted by the Constitutional Court. However, this time the non-binding participatory has been maintained with a wide consensus among Catalan institutions a wide representation from the civil society. These are the three last steps of an intense self-determination process, which started with the approval and trimming of the Catalan Statute of Autonomy and was shaped by four massive demonstrations and a series of "no" and threats by the Spanish authorities. Here is a summary of the main milestones of this process before the massive pro-independence demonstration of 2012.

The President of the civil society association Òmnium Cultural, Muriel Casals, stated that "the mere fact of going with a ballot to the polling station" is "already a success" and will show that "the Catalans' tenacity is stronger that the Spanish State's repression". In an interview with the CNA, Casals stated that "the Spanish democracy has an important failure" as it does not allow "Catalans to vote on our future". Therefore November 9's citizen participation process "is a first step towards using freedom of expression […] to say what we are saying: we are looking for a new relationship" with Spain. The President of one of the grass-roots associations that organised the 3 massive pro-independence demonstrations in 2012, 2013 and 2014 complained that Catalans "have not been recognised as a people with our own culture, with our own language, with our own economic needs, by the different Spanish Governments". Therefore "the best thing" is "to become a new state in Europe", she concluded.

Mariano Rajoy, Spain's Prime Minister, admitted that he "does not know what will happen on the 9^th of November", the day on which a majority of Catalan parties agreed upon for holding a self-determination vote, which goes against the Spanish Government's will. However, Rajoy immediately added that the Catalan President, Artur Mas, told him that "he will not be doing anything illegal", in their Wednesday meeting. The Spanish establishment considers such a vote to be illegal while a few constitutional experts say that such a vote could take place if there was the political will to authorise it. A two-third majority of the Catalan Parliament is determined to use Catalonia's legal framework to call a legal vote. Besides, in the press conference held on the Friday before his holidays, Rajoy also admitted that the self-determination debate is not affecting the economy. However, he added that any step generating "uncertainty or doubts" will "not help" the economic recovery.

The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, and the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, finally met this Wednesday in Madrid to talk about the self-determination process and also about economic, social and institutional issues. Mas told Rajoy that a majority of the Catalan Parliament plans to hold a self-determination vote on the 9^th of November and they want to do it "reaching an agreement with the Spanish Government and within the legal framework". However, if Rajoy rejects negotiating such an agreement, Mas will use the Catalan legal framework to organise a legal vote. Rajoy emphasised that the consultation vote "is not legal and will not be legal" and therefore "will not take place". However, the Spanish PM did not present any alternatives to modify the current status quo. Besides, Mas presented Rajoy with a document with 23 issues not related to self-determination, such as Catalonia's under-budgeted public services, pending infrastructure works, and the Education Reform.

The Prime Minister of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, agrees to meet with the President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, who sent an official request last week, before the end of July. However, the Spanish PM wants to hold "a public meeting" and not "a discrete" talk, as the Catalan President suggested. Over the past few weeks, both Rajoy and Mas have been insisting they were willing to talk to each other but neither one of them was taking the formal steps to arrange a meeting. The last official meeting between the two of them was held a year ago, without taking into account the moments the two of them have coincided at the same event and have exchanged protocol words. Furthermore, before meeting with Mas, Rajoy received on Monday representatives from the pro-Spanish unity NGO Societat Civil Catalana, founded a few months ago. In all those years, Rajoy has not officially met with the grass-roots organisations organising the massive independence demonstrations in Catalonia.

The MEPs from the Centre-Right pro-Catalan State (CiU), Ramon Tremosa and Francesc Gambús, and the MEP from the Basque Nationalist Party (PNB), Izaskun Bilbao, wrote to the re-elected President of the European Parliament stating that the use of Catalan, Basque and Galician languages in the plenary just depends on a “political decision”. The MEPs asked the leader of the Chamber, a former bookshop owner, to show “respect” for their languages. Tremosa, Gambús and Bilbao said that the decision would cost nothing to the European Parliament as many Spanish translators also speak Catalan, Basque or Galician.

Speaking at the V Fórum Impulsa in Girona last Friday, the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, discussed how the online encyclopaedia "protects and expands knowledge" of Catalan. In fact, it was one of the first languages to launch articles on the site, after English and German, and has now already amassed more than 400,000. Wales has highlighted Catalonia’s "passion for its language," and compared it with the Welsh Wikipedia, which is also “extremely active” despite Welsh being a relatively little spoken language. The creator of the free encyclopaedia was one of the featured speakers at the fifth edition of the Fórum Impulsa in Girona.

Just 36.3% of Catalans have Catalan as their main language, according to a survey presented on Friday by the Catalan Ministry of Culture and the Catalan Institute of Statistics (Idescat). The survey examining language use in the population of 2013 found that 31% of the Catalan population had Catalan as their mother tongue and a slightly higher percentage usually converse in Catalan as their main language: 36.3%. Nonetheless, 55.1% of those surveyed reported having Spanish as their mother tongue, with 50.7% using Spanish as their main language. In 2003, 46% reported having Catalan as their main language, but this fell to 35.6% by 2008. Additionally, the report found that 94.3% of Catalans surveyed in 2013 could understand Catalan.

The new King of Spain, Felipe VI, highlighted the unity of the country but also its diversity in his first speech as monarch. In a ceremony before the Spanish Parliament and Senate on Thursday morning, Felipe VI gave a speech portraying the guidelines of his reign, just after swearing loyalty to the Constitution, including the Autonomous Communities, as he stressed. He defined himself as "a Constitutional King", who is "the symbol" of "the unity and permanence of Spain". However, he also highlighted that "unity does not mean uniformity" and he pointed out that the Constitution asks "to respect and protect" the different languages in Spain, which are "a shared heritage" and "bridges for dialogue". Despite praising "diversity", Felipe VI delivered his speech entirely in Spanish, despite a small final greeting in Catalan, Basque and Galician. In addition, he defined Spain as "a great nation" to be "proud of", without mentioning Spain's pluri-national status.

The State Council, which is the Spanish Government's main advisory body, on Thursday called on the Ministry of Education "to reconsider entirely" the decree with the Education Reform that obliges the Catalan Government to pay for the private tuition of students who request to be taught in Spanish if there is no offer in the public system.  The top advisory body considered that the costs of the measure had not been seriously calculated and that limitations have not been included. The Catalan Minister for Education, Irene Rigau,  appealed to the Spanish Ministry of Education to remove this provision from the new Reform.  The latest disagreement is part of an ongoing conflict between the Spanish and the Catalan Governments regarding Catalan being the main language of instruction in schools.  

The Catalan High Court has confirmed its previous decision to oblige 5 schools to teach "at least 25%" of their mandatory subjects in Spanish if the family of a single pupil asks for it, regardless of the opinion of the other children's families. The measure should be adopted "immediately", but the Catalan Government announced that it will lodge another appeal. Two months ago, the affected schools and the Catalan Executive had already appealed a decision that interpreted a previous judgement from the Spanish Supreme Court on the complaint presented by a dozen families from Catalonia. The measure represents a threat to the knowledge of Catalan language by all Catalan children, as well as a threat to true bilingualism, equal opportunities and social cohesion. The current model follows these principles as children totally master both languages, Spanish and Catalan. In addition, the court decision is a threat against separation of powers and Catalonia's self-government.

CataloniaVotes.eu is a new website set up to present the independence referendum, related news, a chronology of the last few years and facts about Catalan society, culture and economy to a foreign audience. The new webpage is in English, French and German and will also follow the day-to-day evolution of the referendum process, a consultation vote scheduled for the 9^th November. It has been launched by the Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia (Diplocat), an organisation backed by the Catalan Government, the four Provincial Councils, universities, chambers of commerce, the main business-owner associations, trade unions, FC Barcelona and other public and private institutions.

In 2012, 26.5% of the Catalans could have a conversation with someone in English, according to the latest survey on foreign languages issued by the Catalan Institute of Statistics (IDESCAT). The youngest population was also the most skilled, with 50.8% of teenagers aged 15-19 knowing the language. According to EU studies on bilingualism, Catalonia should offer a more positive context for English learning, due to having two main official languages, Catalan and Castilian (referred to as Spanish abroad). But, despite improving figures, the Catalans remain slightly behind the Spaniards and are still outdistanced by the Scandinavian leaders. Nevertheless, recent figures point towards a positive change in trend, sparked by a school system that fosters true bilingualism. Interestingly, Catalan currently is the minority language in Catalonia, following successive waves of immigration from other regions in Spain and Franco’s repression.