The President of Plataforma per la Llengua, Òscar Escuder, has sent a letter to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to remind him of the commitment he made in August 2023 to make Catalan official in the EU. It was during the negotiations between the Catalan pro-independence party Junts and the Spanish socialist party (PSOE) for administrative control of the Spanish parliament that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, confirmed that he had asked the Council of the EU to include Catalan in Article 1 of the Regulation governing the official and working languages of the EU.
In his letter, Escuder stresses that during this year the Spanish government has shown itself able "to reach agreements at European level on very diverse issues", as well as with the right-wing Spanish party (PP) "on matters that have proved very difficult, such as the renewal of the judicial supervision body (CGPJ)". For this reason, although he acknowledges that there is reluctance to reach the unanimity that official status for the Catalan language requires in Europe because of the States with governments ideologically close to the PP, Escuder asks President Sánchez to apply the same determination and willingness to negotiate that he has used on these other occasions to "finish the job" and remove the obstacles to official status for Catalan.
Escuder emphasises that official status would give Catalan speakers equal language rights with other Europeans and would demonstrate that Sánchez upholds the linguistic plurality of the State in a real way that goes beyond mere rhetoric.
Official status for Catalan was debated on as many as three occasions in the meetings of the Council of the EU during the Spanish presidency of the Union last year, but was never submitted to a vote. Some States, such as Finland or Sweden, were reluctant to approve it because of the impact the decision could have on other language communities in their countries with similar aspirations. They demanded more legal, economic and administrative information before making a decision.
Plataforma per la Llengua campaign
Plataforma per la Llengua was very active in the campaign to uphold the official status of Catalan in the EU. With a view to the Spanish presidency of the EU, which began in July last year, the organisation promoted two joint manifestos with social, economic and cultural bodies from all over the Catalan-speaking territories demanding that Spain should make use of its position to add Catalan to the list of official languages of the EU. Junts took up this demand in its negotiations with the Spanish socialists.
Shortly before the Council meetings, the organisation launched the "Say Yes" campaign to convince member States to vote yes, with contributions from people with international public profiles, such as Pep Guardiola, Aitana Bonmati, Josep Carreras, Sergi López and Joan Laporta.
In December, the organisation published a legal report prepared by two professors of EU law at King's College London and the University of Birmingham which maintained that there are no legal impediments to including Catalan in Article 1 of Regulation 1/1958, which establishes the official and working languages of the EU. Subsequently, at the last meeting of the Council when the issue was debated during the Spanish presidency of the EU, at the end of 2023, the organisation announced that it will continue to campaign until official status is debated and approved by this institution.
