How comfortable the Spanish government must be feeling that, as well as decaffeinating the so-called dialogue table with Catalonia and playing the big shot over the expansion of El Prat airport by announcing a 'take it or leave it', it has now crossed a red line with the draft of the audiovisual communication bill which will soon be put to the Spanish cabinet and end up as the audiovisual law. Demands for mandatory quotas for the Catalan language on television channels and, above all, on the major streaming platforms such as Netflix, HBO, Movistar and Disney, to name just four, have not been met. As a result, Catalan is doomed to marginality - as are Galician and Basque - as its use is at the mercy of the decisions of the platforms, which will always be able to cover the necessary percentage with production in Castilian.
I don't know how close the Catalan government's attitude on this issue will get to belligerence - but this is needed, as we are facing a crucial issue for the unstoppable decline of Catalan that all the statistics have been showing. The bill is unacceptable not only for the independence movement - but it also would be for parties such as the Comuns and the PSC if they took the stands that they used to. We are not talking about anything other than the politics of an autonomous community - in which we are immersed even if we don't like it - and asking for a response to an urgent need affecting "an official language of Spain", as the law considers it.
Demanding language quotas through a measure such as the proposed audiovisual law is, right now, not a whim but an urgent need. Streaming platforms already occupy a very significant part of the audiovisual market and this percentage will only grow. Putting protection in place here and maintaining it is a requirement for any government that considers itself pro-Catalan. The latest statistics reflect, for example, that there has been a sharp decline in the use of Catalan among young people. In Barcelona, in 2015 it was the usual language for 35.6% and in 2020, just five years later, it had fallen to 28.4%, a drop of more than seven percent. In this same period, Castilian has gone from being the usual language for 56.5% of young people, to become the typically used language for 62.1% of them.
Catalan is in a situation of linguistic emergency with fronts open at all levels and in all areas of language use in Spain: from the administration of justice with its opposition to increasing Catalan use, to the judges themselves with their rulings on policies in Catalan schools, or the laws on education passed by successive ministries, or the moves by the Spanish government that end up weakening the language of Catalonia via framework legislation or carefully-calculated decrees.
It can be expected that in the next few hours there will be many statements made about this. Some have already begun. It will not be enough, obviously, since the Spanish government is making use of a very old tactic: go hard on the new proposal and then ease off with a minimum concession after a grueling debate. This time it will be necessary to use parliamentary majorities intelligently. And to tell the PSOE that, on this issue, the use of the alternative parliamentary majority - through an alliance with PP or Ciudadanos - will have consequences. Because this is the only language that is understood in Madrid.