Our party reasserts its defence of the language after the latest judicial assault on the Catalan educational language immersion model and the commitments unfulfilled by the Spanish government to adapt the content of digital platforms

“Don’t mess with Catalan. Esquerra Republicana will always defend Catalan everywhere, in every domain,” said Esquerra Deputy Secretary General and spokeswoman Marta Vilalta, asserting Esquerra Republicana’s firm commitment to the protection of our language and the language immersion model.

Ms Vilalta said that Esquerra is working to protect Catalan in all those areas they have responsibility, decision-making power or influence. Proof of this is that “country-wide, we are working on the National Pact for Language: at the institutional level there will be a summit on Catalan in school together with educational organizations; in the street, we call for participation in Saturday’s rally in defence of schooling in Catalan; and at the political level, we are negotiating on the protection of Catalan in the Spanish audiovisuals bill,” she stated. “Wherever we are, we get things done; we defend what we believe is right, to the last resort,” she added.

And Esquerra does all this knowing that “we will only really be able to shield the language in all walks of life with a Catalan Republic.” In fact, said Ms Vilalta, “that’s why we are also pro-independence, because we want to live our lives fully in Catalan.” “We want to leave behind dictator Franco’s regime, whose heirs want to impose percentages, those who would have us surrendering and in prison,” she continued, referring to the statements at the weekend by right-wing PP party leader, Pablo Casado, and the leader of the ‘Citizens’ party, Inés Arrimadas. “But they will not succeed,” she assured, “and despite not having a state’s arsenal but the tools that we have, we will take advantage of them all,” insisted the spokeswoman, “always defending the language everywhere, starting with schooling through to the audiovisuals industry.”

Ms Vilalta explained that it is precisely in the field of audiovisuals that Esquerra is continuing talks with the Spanish administration in order to have a catalogue of content in Catalan on the digital platforms specified by law, and also for the first time, the funding to produce, subtitle and dub in Catalan. “This is not a minor issue, and we have been left to defend it alone, more than we would like,” she said. In fact, “it is a very important issue for our language and a historical claim for the audiovisual sector.”