A delegation of the Plataforma per la Llengua returned from Brussels after a satisfying meeting with different European agents, institutions and organisations, exchanging opinions and analyses of the situation of Catalan language, the language rights of speakers of minority languages in Europe and the possibilities of working together on projects to prevent a Europe that will be more respectful of linguistic diversity.
In this regard, special mention should be made of the meetings with Mr. Amadeu Altafaj, Standing Representative of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia in the European Union, and the MEP Ramon Tremosa, who offered to establish bridges for collaboration with the Plataforma per la Llengua to support the campaigns on the use of Catalan in the European Union and in the regulations and the activities of the European Authorities that affect language policies in our country. He also encouraged the organisation to work more in the international scenario and to generate joint actions with other European organisations to defend the harmonisation of minority languages.
Mention must also be made of the meeting with Ms. Marina Albiol, Esquerra Unida's MEP from the Valencian Community who last week managed to get the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties and Justice and Home Affairs to hold a debate about linguistic discrimination next January. The delegation of the Plataforma per la Llengua made the most of the meeting to update Albiol on different cases of linguistic discrimination and aggression perpetrated on Catalan speakers in recent months. The MEP insisted on the need to publicise these cases of discrimination within the European framework and invited the organisation to participate in the debate next January.
The Catalan language NGO also had a meeting with the European Commission's multilingualism promotion service. The Commission's representatives showed great interest in learning about the organisation's work, particularly in the areas of linguistic awareness-raising and hosting. The fact that the Plataforma per la Llengua was a unique European success story was highlighted: an organisation for the defence and promotion of linguistic rights with more than 10,000 members.
The delegation of the Plataforma per la Llengua also met ELEN, the European Linguistic Equality Network, which is highly interested in the Plataforma per la Llengua's work to defend and create awareness of Catalan. Even if Catalan cannot be regarded as a minority language in view of the number of speakers, the difficulty of standardising Catalan in Europe in the face of the opposition of a state such as Spain was made very clear. Davyth Hicks, ELEN's representative, stated his willingness to collaborate with campaigns such as the one with Netflix, undertaken by the Plataforma per la Llengua last October, to have the most important provider of Internet-based television contents to include Catalan in its broadcasts and thus act as a European lobby.
Moreover, the visit by the Plataforma per la Llengua to the European Parliament coincided with the presence of some MEPs, namely Ernest Maragall and Ernest Urtasun, who took a great interest in the organisation's actions and activities and made a very positive appraisal of this institutional trip by the Plataforma per la Llengua to afford greater exposure to the abnormal situation of Catalan in Europe, while also expressing an interest in meeting representatives of the Organisation in the near future.
