The Spanish government has once again performed a balancing act to avoid attacking the Catalan language immersion policy, while simultaneously demanding respect for the Catalan High Court's resolution which marks an assault on that policy. Following the court's ultimatum giving two weeks for the introduction of a 25% Spanish language quota in all Catalan classrooms, the Spanish executive gave the message that "court rulings are to be complied with".This was stated by the government spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, who also said that the state's High Education Inspectorate will be activated to ensure compliance. Meanwhile, the ERC political party is pushing to activate a legal alternative, which is currently frozen in the Parliament of Catalonia.
In the press conference after the Spanish cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Isabel Rodríguez made a preliminary comment, recalling that the Spanish government "considers the co-official languages as cultural wealth and not a source of confrontation or a weapon." She added that this is the concept included in the current Spanish education act, the so-called Celaá Law: "That students studying in autonomous communities with co-official languages must complete their education with competence in both languages."
However, at this point, the Spanish government spokesperson switched tacks, to stress that "court decisions are to be complied with" and that "the Spanish government will act with the High Inspectorate to comply with what the courts indicate." This inspectorate, unlike regular school inspectors in Catalonia, is a body directly responsible to the central government in Madrid, charged with ensuring that educational practices in an autonomous community do not conflict with Spanish educational norms. Rodríguez then ended her discourse with a "message of reassurance" to the educational community: "that the school term will end normally and that we are a country rich in languages and this should be a reason for satisfaction and not for confrontation."
ERC applies pressure
Against the 25%. The Catalan government has promised this Tuesday to guarantee that next year "there will be more Catalan than currently" in Catalonia's schools. This was stated by the spokeswoman for the Catalan executive, Patrícia Plaja, who assured that the executive will make "every effort" to increase the use of the language in the classrooms. During the press conference following the Catalan cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Plaja referred to activities in shared spaces such as school playgrounds and dining rooms, as well as through leisure with training sessions, family activities, conversation groups and leisure activities in Catalan. "The government is working to strengthen and fix the Catalan model," she said.
The parties are also moving. Today, ERC spokesperson Marta Vilalta called for a proactive attitude in the face of repeated attacks by the judiciary against the Catalan school. And this, for the Republicans, means, in part, pushing forward the parliamentary agreement on the Catalan language between the PSC, ERC, Junts and the Comuns, consisting of amending the Language Policy Act, which has been postponed in Parliament for weeks following the reticence of Junts. "What we can't do is not do anything, or stay at the level of slogans, because slogans are not useful to defend Catalan," the ERC leader warned on Tuesday.