24 March 2009

Multilingualism

Just a few moments ago, we achieved a great victory in the European Parliament’s hemicycle. Maria Badia was the principal architect, proposing a resolution to counter the report by Popular Party MEP Graça Moura entitled Multilingualism: an Asset for Europe and a Shared Commitment (A6-0092/2009). The alternative text received the support of various political groups who saw many problems with the original text. Put to the vote, the majority of deputies gave support to Maria’s proposal.

My hair stood on end when, in the plenary, Graça Moura tried to defend against the alternative resolution saying that “irritated nationalisms” wanted to water down his text and bring their battles to the European Parliament. On the contrary: the Spanish Popular Party deputies had introduced amendments into the report that questioned the very basis of linguistic politics in Catalonia, stemming from a supposed defense of the right of parents to choose the language in which their children are to be schooled.

The PP members thus wanted to subvert what have been the principal virtues of the Catalan model, a model that has turned out to be an extraordinary one—despite the quantity of work that remains to be done—if we look at the situation in many other areas of Europe. The first pillar of our model is social cohesion: today the Catalan language is the common patrimony of all Catalans, for those who speak it and those who don’t. The second pillar is that our model works toward valid objectives for all: it guarantees, by the end of schooling, thorough knowledge of Catalan and Spanish. Based on the principle of subsidiarity, deciding how and with what elements these objectives will be attained, and our hard-earned social cohesion preserved, belongs to our institutions and our people.