The situation of the Catalan language was yesterday the reason for discussion between the ERC candidate for the May elections, Pere Aragonès, and the PSC candidate, Salvador Illa. The spark that lit the fuse was a statement by the president warning that if Illa manages to govern, the Catalan language will be in danger, a warning that made the socialist candidate blame the successive pro-independence governments for the current situation of the language.
Aragonès vindicated the Government’s task, increasing the resources allocated to linguistic policy; He promised to continue on this path if he returns to govern to guarantee that Catalan continues to survive thanks to an active linguistic policy, but he warned that if after the 12-M elections Illa manages to be invested as president of the Generalitat, “all this will be in danger.”
Aragonès even accused Illa of being “a person who changes languages ??at the first opportunity”, who “does not defend the Catalan language” and who “has renounced linguistic immersion, of which the PSC 40 years ago was driving force, to now embrace the trilingualism model that Ciudadanos proposed.”
Asked about these words, Illa responded from l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, blaming the pro-independence parties responsible for the current diagnosis of the Catalan language, which is reflected above all in the poor results recorded in its social use.
“What we have to do is work with unity to ensure the social use of Catalan. Less noise and more work,” Illa prescribed and then highlighted that “ten years after the Junts and ERC governments, with four presidents: Mr. Mas, Mr. Puigdemont, Mr. Torra and Mr. Aragonès, the social use of Catalan has regressed.” The leader of the PSC reiterated, as he does in other matters, that also in the area of ??language, those of the procés have been “ten years lost”, while with him at the head of the Catalan socialists he has tried to “help” by reaching parliamentary agreements, such as the law on the use and learning of official languages ??in non-university education.
Illa extended the responsibility for the poor situation of the social use of Catalan to other subjects, such as education, health, renewable energy, infrastructure, drought…, to conclude that “neither Junts nor ERC have a political basis to make many demands if they do not first demand of themselves.” The PSC leader asked both parties to “make an evaluation of why after ten years of governing we are the way we are, also in linguistic matters.”
