Junts per Catalunya assumes that Catalan will not be an official language in Europe during Spain’s Rotary presidency of the Council of the European Union, which ends this December. Former president Carles Puigdemont, however, attributes the doubts that the issue has raised in some countries, especially in Sweden and Finland, to “the offensive of the Popular Party” and its campaign to “Spanishize” European politics.
The General Affairs Council of the EU discusses the issue this Tuesday in Brussels but will not ultimately vote on it. It was the last opportunity for this issue, one of the commitments of the PSOE with JxCat last August, in the agreement for the constitution of the Congress Board, to go ahead during the semester of the Spanish presidency of the EU Council, which Now it will go to Belgium. In this sense, the Secretary of State for the EU, Pascual Navarro, reported today before entering the meeting that he has already had conversations with Belgium to maintain the official status of Catalan, Basque and Galician as a proposal on the agenda. In any case, from now on Spain will no longer have the ability to interest issues on the agenda.
All in all, Puigdemont highlights that the “non-compliance” with what had been said “that it would be possible” a few months ago does not mean that in the future it will not be possible to make the language official in the community institutions. “That the initial idea of ??reaching the end of the Spanish presidency of the Council of the EU with the approval of the official status of Catalan has not been possible does not mean, however, that the options of achieving it have disappeared due to this fact,” points out the now MEP. “The path begun is irreversible, although more time is needed,” he adds.
According to the former president, the PP “from day one has had an interest in derailing a proposal that was part of the political agreements that could facilitate a PSOE and Sumar government in Spain.” Thus, the former president considers that “the initial reluctance of some countries with popular governments is explained, to a large extent, by political pressure and not so much by the reasons given, which have been duly refuted.”
This is how the independence leader spoke in a long message on the social network X, formerly Twitter. The now MEP will coincide with the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, in the plenary session of the European Parliament this Wednesday, which is being held in Strasbourg.
“Catalan has everything it needs to be an official,” highlighted the spokesperson for JxCat in the Congress of Deputies, Míriam Nogueras, who along the same lines as Puigdemont has assured that we must go “step by step.” and that “it is an issue that cannot be reversed.” In any case, although she considers that the Sánchez Government has to “get its act together” with this matter, she has highlighted that the matter has been debated in the last meetings of the EU General Affairs Council.