It is, perhaps, a counterintuitive approach: promoting the idea of making your language official in Europe with an advertising campaign that doesn't even focus on that language, but instead, focuses on all of them - on everybody's language. That what's the Catalan government has done as it launches an advertising campaign throughout the continent, with advertisements in public places and in the media, defending the proposal to grant official EU status to Catalan. "If all languages are exceptional, let none be an exception in Europe" reads the slogan of a campaign that defends the linguistic richness of the continent and the right to live in one's own language. The initiative was presented this Friday at the Generalitat of Catalonia's office in Brussels with an eye on the meeting to be held this coming Tuesday at which the General Affairs Council of the EU will, for the second time, consider the Spanish request to modify the European Union's regulations which currently specify 24 official languages.
On September 19th, the General Affairs Council addressed the request to add three of the languages spoken in the Spanish state - Catalan, Basque and Galician - to the list of official languages of the EU. This request - long demanded from within these language communities - is part of the conditions that Together for Catalonia (Junts) set out to the Spanish Socialists (PSOE) to vote for that party's candidate Francina Armengol as new speaker of Spain's lower house. But faced with the reluctance of some member states over the change, the Council agreed to commission legal reports, and to continue debating the issue at the meeting scheduled for this Tuesday.
Speaking at the presentation of the publicity campaign, the Catalan foreign action minister, Meritxell Serret, admitted that it will be difficult for Tuesday's meeting to give the definitive approval to the linguistic change, but she stressed that the important thing is that the process keeps moving forward. "There is a clear consensus at a social and institutional level. We are optimistic", said the minister, who described the procedure that has been opened for the officialization of Catalan as an "historic opportunity".
The English version of the spot promoting the extension of official EU status to Catalan - one of 25 versions of the ad.
The Catalan government's campaign argues in favour of the official status of Catalan by inviting speakers of different European countries to defend their own language, to live it and to love it. The text of the video explains that this message from Catalonia has been translated into 24 languages and the rights have been given away "so that Europe recognizes the value of all languages and makes Catalan official".
The Catalan version of the spot.
Despite the slogan, when asked about the fear expressed by some that there could be a cascade effect following the officialization of Catalan that would cause many European minority languages to claim this status, the minister recalled that Catalan is an official language in Spain, it has more than 10 million speakers, which places it among the fifteen most spoken languages in Europe, and that it is a very structured and solid language which will facilitate technical aspects related to translation. In addition, she emphasized that official European status for Catalan is a demand that has long been requested.
Serret explained that for weeks the government of the Generalitat has been making huge efforts to support the initiative in favour of the EU officialization of Catalan, and explained that they also seek to influence public opinion, through this campaign that she described as "empathic".
The campaign will also have a web page in which the reasons for defending the officiality of Catalan and correcting an "historical anomaly" are set out, as well as advertisements in newspapers and billboards in the streets.
The Catalan minister avoided giving details of the cost of the campaign until the media exposure is decided in all the countries where it is to be promoted.