The information visit that took twelve MEPs to Barcelona this afternoon to analyze the linguistic immersion model over the next three days has ended with controversy. The parliamentarians, who belong to the Petitions Commission, chaired by Dolors Montserrat (PP), arrive to try to respond to the request made, among others, by the Assembly for a Bilingual School, on the impact of immersion in school for families who “move to the region.” A delegation where there is no representation of left-wing formations, and in which the socialists decided not to attend, considering that Montserrat “has made partisan use.”
In this context, the MEP and former president Carles Puigdemont has addressed a letter to the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, pointing out that “partisan use of the Petitions Committee” is being made and requests the intervention of the presidency to “prevent to Parliament from institutional degradation, and from the misuse of public resources.” For this reason, it is also requested that the process that led to the establishment of this “information visit” be investigated and a report be prepared on the matter.
Puigdemont understands that Dolors Montserrat’s only objective is to publish a “biased report” already prepared in advance to launch a “propaganda campaign and to promote hate speech against the Catalan educational system.”
During the visit of the MEPs, which will last until Wednesday the 20th, they will meet with petitioners, representatives of families and teachers, associations, civil society, members of the judiciary and authorities, and they will also visit two educational centers in the Baix Llobregat region. (Barcelona).
As noted, no socialist MEP will be part of this delegation, where Cristina Maestre was initially scheduled to attend as a companion. “The agenda is so politicized, and so tailor-made for the strategy of discrediting the three rights, that no socialist MEP from any country has been willing to participate in this farce,” Maestre said in a statement on Friday.
The official members of the delegation are Yana Toom (Renew Europe, Estonia) who is the president of the delegation; Peter Jahr (EPP, Germany); Jaroslaw Duda (EPP, Poland); Kosma Zlotowski (ECR, Poland); Virginie Joron (ID, France) and Maria Angela Danzi (NI, Italy). In addition, the president of the Petitions commission and PP MEP, Dolors Montserrat, will accompany the delegation, along with other Spanish MEPs such as Rosa Estaràs (PP), Maite Pagazaurtundúa (Renew Europe), Diana Riba (Verds/ALE) and Jorge Buxadé (ECR).
This information visit is organized to follow up on the different petitions received and debated by the parliamentary commission on linguistic immersion in Catalonia, such as petition 0858/2017 from the Assembly for a Bilingual School (AEB) on the impact of immersion in Catalan. at the school for families newly arrived in Catalonia. There are also two private petitions, 0650/2022 on judicial precautionary measures related to education in Spanish in Catalonia, and 0826/2022 on the “alleged failure of the Catalan administration to allow education in Spanish in schools.”
Socialist MEP Cristina Maestre said on Friday that the socialists proposed that the visit take into account all the diversity of educational centers, as well as civil society and social agents, but that “the right has refused and has opted for an absolutely biased agenda.” .
The information visit will begin this Monday at 4 p.m. with meetings with the three petitioners, family representatives and teachers at the European Parliament Office in Barcelona. On Tuesday morning the delegation will meet with members of the judiciary and visit 2 educational centers: one with “full linguistic immersion” and another in which 25% of classes are in Spanish for one of the school groups. In the afternoon, MEPs will meet with associations, civil society and representatives of the Catalan authorities. The Minister of Education of the Generalitat, Anna Simó, described the mission of European parliamentarians as “insane” last Wednesday in Parliament, although she has assured that she will meet with them. Simó criticized the talk of the mission as if “he was going to the Americas to see the damn immersion” and assured that they tried to send them a list of schools where the immersion is applied. Furthermore, she regretted that the MEPs will visit a special education center and a high school: “I don’t know what linguistic immersion they want to see in a special education center and a secondary school.”
