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As the saying goes, there's bad news and there's good news. On the one hand, the Catalan president-in-exile, Carles Puigdemont, criticizes that the blocking strategy that Spain's two main parties, the PP and the PSOE, have deployed for years against the granting of official EU language status to Catalan has been one of the main obstacles encountered by the current Spanish government's attempt to promote the reform of the EU's language regulations, in compliance with the agreements reached with the exiled Catalan politician's party, Junts. But on the other, he affirms that "the path started is irreversible", now that the Spanish state, taking advantage of the rotating presidency of the EU, has presented to the Council of General Affairs its request to incorporate Catalan, Galician and Basque among the official languages. However, he warns that Spain will have to defend this claim unabashedly, that it will be necessary to pursue its claim all the way, if necessary, taking it to the European Court of Justice, to make it clear that there is no need to reform the treaties to incorporate Catalan among the official languages.

That is what Puigdemont stated this morning, at a time when the Council of General Affairs was still debating the issue, but with the outcome predictable, and minutes later it was indeed confirmed: given that Spain has not managed to guarantee the unanimity required to move the proposal forward, it was not put to a vote. Spain's undersecretary for foreign affairs, Pascual Ignacio Navarro Ríos, emphasized the fact that the debate was still alive, and that Spanish officials have spoken with Belgium, which will take over the presidency of the EU from January, to continue promoting this reform.

Significant progress

Puigdemont's post on social media X thus recognized the incontrovertible fact that the proposal will not now be approved during the Spanish presidency, even if he had assured Junts "that it would be possible" and that, in fact, in recent days "the only doubts there were of a political nature and above all linked to the offensive by the PP". However, he emphasized that in the state of this debate significant progress has been made, given that "officiality remains on the agenda and it is a demand that has a path ahead" and that they do not intend to give up.

According to Puigdemont, this process has encountered two main obstacles. "The first, that the Spanish state, in a very short time, has had to undo a blocking strategy that originated long ago and was employed by many Spanish governments, both from the PP and the PSOE", he argued, stressing that the work to correct this course was not supported with the full conviction of the politicians who were given the task, just as with the amnesty law, and that Spain's political and technical structures that serve the EU "have not overflowed with enthusiasm" for the measure. As a result of all this, he asserted that the work done was not at the same level as when, in previous years, they took it upon themselves to convince the European countries of "all the evils" that were attributed to the independence movement. Nevertheless, he recalled the positive assessment that he himself gave to the work of the Spanish foreign minister in defence of Catalan, "an unprecedented and positive fact, but insufficient".

As for the PP, which he asserts has been the second obstacle encountered in the path after requesting official status, he underlined the interest that the Spanish conservative party showed from the very start in derailing a proposal that was part of the political agreements that could facilitate a PSOE-Sumar government in Spain. "They Spanishized European politics more than should be allowed," he said. He also criticized that, at the behest of the PP, the Italian foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, who collected a Princess of Asturias Award for Concord, had led the opposition to the Spanish proposal which would have enabled a language that is also spoken in Italy to be official in the EU. "A very curious way of accrediting the merits that made him deserving of one of the highest distinctions awarded by the Spanish (of course we all know the reasons why they gave it to him)", he adds in reference to the fact that Tajani presided over the European Parliament when the entry of Puigdemont and Toni Comín into the chamber was vetoed despite them having won seats in the European elections.

Legal reports

However, Puigdemont emphasizes that the fact that it has not been approved now does not mean that the options to achieve this official status have disappeared. "The path that has started is irreversible, even if it takes more time," he says. In fact, he warns of the need to take the path until its end to overcome the reservations which the legal services have and, if necessary, appeal to the European Court of Justice where "the Spanish state will have to defend unabashedly that it is not necessary to reform the Union treaties for a language to become official".

With regard to this, he emphasized that there are "highly solvent" independent legal reports that "flatly refute the position of the Council's legal services". "And this needs to be fought in a more open and resounding way," he warned.

Puigdemont concludes the tweet by warning that it makes no sense that a language spoken by millions of European citizens is not official, so he calls on the Spanish state to do the remaining work and stand up to those who are challenging it, if it wants to be credible in itsa claim about the officiality of Catalan.