Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) has unanimously agreed not to participate in the reform of Catalonia's law on language policy, on which it had previously reached an accord with three other Catalan political parties - the PSC, ERC and the Comuns. The pro-independence party gave two reasons for disengaging definitively from that proposal: "Because there is no consensus with the education sector and the organizations that act in defence of the language, and because it will not stop a court decision which imposes a 25% Spanish language quota in the classrooms". Junts has already communicated its decision to ERC and the president of the Catalan government, Pere Aragonès, and has announced that it will put forward a specific proposal to respond to the judicial offensive against Catalonia's own language.
The party's standing committee has met to formally agree on its position after pressure over the last days from the other three parties which originally agreed to the pact - pro-independence partners ERC, the alternative-left Comuns and Catalan Socialists (PSC). On March 24th, in the context of the judicial action over language, the four parties agreed to a reform in the law, but Junts stepped away from the measure following widespread criticism by organizations working in defence of the Catalan language, which had not been consulted over the new proposal. In fact, the Junts decision was already explained by the Catalan vice-president, Jordi Puigneró, and the party's parliamentary leader, Albert Batet, in a meeting with president Aragonés yesterday at the Generalitat palace.
Junts spokesperson Josep Rius reiterates the importance of stopping court interference in the classrooms - one of the precipitants for the four-party agreement - but underlined that "measures must be agreed by consensus" with language protection bodies and teachers. "We can't turn our back on educational and linguistic institutions," he warned.
Rius recalled that the day after the March 24th announcement, when Junts stood aside from the agreement, the party demanded three conditions to rejoin it: that Catalonia's policy of Catalan language immersion and the use of Catalan as the vehicular language be guaranteed without any interpretative doubts, that the teachers and school managements be protected from prosecution, and that the aules d'acollida or reception classrooms - to give students newly-arrived in Catalonia extra attention and language assistance - also be protected. "These three conditions have not been accepted by the other parties to the agreement," Rius said.
Agreement doesn't stop the court
The Junts spokesperson considers that, with the Catalan High Court ruling made public on Monday demanding the immediate application of the imposition of 25% of teaching hours in Spanish in all Catalan classrooms, it has been shown that the law reform will not be able protect the immersion policy, as the court knew the parties were pushing for legislative reform and yet still demanded enforcement of its sentence, based on current legislation.
The party has not hidden its dissatisfaction with the political pressures it has been subject to in recent days. Rius said that they had been silent on the issue since March 24th "in an attempt to preserve consensus, out of political responsibility." "But it has not been respected by the other parties, who have accused us of obstructionism," he said.
Warning to Socialists
And not only that. The Puigdemont-led party made it clear today that it will not stand idly by in the face of the criticisms it is receiving. "In defence of the Catalan language, we do not accept lessons from any other party, and least of all from the PSC," warned Rius, noting the action of the Socialists in Madrid with initiatives such as the Celaá education law which "avoided protecting language immersion."
Junts has not stated what measures it proposes to respond to the judicial offensive. However, as ElNacional.cat has reported, party sources have recalled that the government has the capacity to push for a decree or order to legally protect schools from having to impose the new quota. "The only goal of Junts is to try to reach consensus on measures to protect language immersion. The Catalan language is a red line and we will not endorse any measure that would mean a setback", concluded Rius.