The situation of the Catalan language was the reason for discussion yesterday between the ERC candidate for the May elections, Pere Aragonès, and the PSC candidate, Salvador Illa. The spark that lit the fuse were statements by the president in which he warned that if Illa manages to govern, the Catalan language will be in danger, a prevention that made the aspiring socialist blame the current situation of the language on the successive ones pro-independence governments.
Aragonès vindicated the Government’s work by increasing the resources allocated to language policy; he pledged to continue on this path if he returns to govern to ensure that Catalan continues to survive thanks to an active language policy, but he warned that if after the elections of 12 M Illa managed to be invested as president of the Generalitat, “everything this will be in danger”.
Aragonès even accused Illa of being “a person who changes his language at the first opportunity”, who “does not defend the Catalan language” and who “has given up on linguistic immersion, which the PSC does 40 years he was the driving force, to now embrace the model of trilingualism proposed by Ciutadans”.
When asked about these words, Illa responded from Hospitalet de Llobregat by holding 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 needs to be done is to work with unity to ensure the social use of Catalan. Less noise and more work”, accepted Illa and then remarked that “ten years after Junts and ERC governments, with four presidents: Mr. Mas, Mr. Puigdemont, Mr. Torra and Mr. Aragonès, the use social status of Catalan has regressed”. The leader of the PSC reiterated, as he does in other matters, that also in the field of language, those of the process have been “lost ten years”, while with him at the head of the Catalan Socialists he has tried to “help” 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 energies, infrastructures, the drought…, to conclude that “neither Junts nor ERC they have a political basis to make many demands if they don’t make demands on themselves first”. The leader of the PSC asked both parties to “make an assessment of why after ten years of governing we are the way we are, also in linguistic matters”.
