24 October. This has to be the day when the European Union Council gives the go-ahead for Catalan to be made official. Plataforma per la Lengua is calling on the Spanish government to do its job to ensure official status is voted on at the next meeting of the General Affairs Council on 24 October. The organisation made this statement to the media this morning in an assessment of the Council meeting and the subsequent press conference held by the Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister José Manuel Albares.
Plataforma per la Llengua considers that Spain has sufficient capacity to provide the information required by the delegations in a reasonable time, and before the next General Affairs meeting of the EU Council. "Following Spain's announcement that it will pay the financial costs of the measure, Spain must dispel all doubts, particularly the political and legal ones, and it has a basis to do that," according to the director of the organisation, Rut Carandell, and the person in charge of the campaign to make Catalan official in the EU, Pol Cruz-Corominas.
The organisation will continue to work to offer arguments in favour of legal and political official status, as it has already done with its videos in English and Catalan about the legality of official status and the political arguments it has been presenting to its own contacts at international level. It also positively values the "gradual deployment" system suggested in the Spanish delegation under which Catalan would be the first of the three languages Spain is asking to be made official to be rolled out, if this removes the obstacles to a "yes" vote on the 24th.
"SAY YES" continues
The Catalan NGO will continue with its international "SAY YES", campaign although it believes part of the goal has already been achieved, as member States now realise their vote on official status will be observed by millions of Europeans. For the organisation, it was also important for the States to realise that their image in Catalan-speaking territories is at stake. However, as official status for Catalan has not yet been achieved, Plataforma per la Llengua will continue to pressurise the agents involved so that all States vote in favour.
