Dossier 19- The Catalan language and the Proposed Revision of the Catalan Statute of Autonomy

(It is certainly true that language is not the most important feature of the personality of a nation, since undoubtedly common moral and material interests, either daughter of nature or shaped by history, are far more important; yet, not being the most important thing, it is indeed the most visible one [...] The way a country thinks and feels is correlative to the language it uses.”)

Valentí Almirall, Lo catalanisme (1886)

1. Introduction

The Autonomous Catalan Parliament approved on September 30th 2005 the Proposed Revision of the Catalan Statute of Autonomy in force since 1979. The proposal, which has a preamble, 227 articles and 11 provisions, received the favourable vote of 120 MP from CiU (federation of conservative and moderate Catalan nationalists), PSC (Catalan Socialist Party with ties with Spanish Socialists), ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia, Catalan pro-independence progressive party) and IC-V (Catalan green party, ex-communists). The only 15 negative votes came from PP (conservative Spanish nationalists).

Although the proposal is currently being discussed in the Spanish Congress of Deputies and the final result of the political process is unclear, the proposed revision has already become juridical and political doctrine by the mere fact that it has obtained the approval of the great majority of representatives of the Catalan people. Therefore, Mercator-Legislation publishes the paragraphs enclosed in it that refer to language policy, and presents a brief overview on the different Statutes of Autonomy that have been in effect in Catalonia in order to offer our readers a more comprehensible context and the real scope of its content.

2. The Statutes of 1932 and 1979

The first time Catalonia obtained a Statute of Autonomy after having lost its freedoms and rights in 1714 was in 1932 as a result of the proclamation of the Spanish Second Republic in 1931. The Statute of Autonomy of 1932 –according to which Catalonia constituted an autonomous region within the Spanish state after arduous parliamentary debates that resulted in a text considerably diluted- established, within its territory, both Catalan and Castilian as official languages. Thus, Catalan could be the language of education, media and other several domains. According to its articles, “citizens, whatever mother tongue they have, will have the right to use the official language they prefer in their relationship with the courts, authorities and officials of any sector serving the Generalitat (Catalan autonomous government) or the Republic”. The Statute also established that in Generalitat’s call for bids, knowledge of the language and civil code of the Catalans shall be a necessary condition, and exemption will not be considered whatsoever and that public attorneys and registrars posted in Catalonia must know the Catalan language and the Catalan civil code. However, Spanish was reserved as the only official language of communication between Catalonia and the rest of Spain and the State authorities.

The new Statute of Autonomy was short-lived. It was suspended between 1934 and 1936 by the Spanish government and was re-established in 1936 when a coalition of left-wing parties won the elections. However, the Statute and all self-government institutions were abolished by Franco’s force of arms in 1939 at the end of a civil war that broke out after his coup d’état failed. Catalan, then, was proscribed from education and all public sectors. The persecution of the Catalan language was intense and systematic, especially until 1962. The publication of books, newspapers and magazines, the transmission of telegrams and telephone conversations in Catalan were banned. The showing of films was compulsorily in Spanish, and theatre could only be performed in this language. Radio and television broadcasting were exclusively in Spanish, and the administrative, notarial, judicial or mercantile documents in Catalan were considered null and void. Street, road and business signage, publicity and all external signage in general were by force in Spanish.

From the fifties on, when any of the Catalan-speaking lands could offer neither town or educational planning nor cultural infrastructure in the country’s language, a large-scale Castilian-speaking immigration coming from the rest of Spain settled in Catalonia. Such immigration was sometimes manipulated to marginalize Catalan even more. Gradually, though, many newcomers came to realize that Catalan was necessary to ascend socially. In fact, Catalan not only remained transmitted within the family domain in Catalonia and the rest of the Catalan lands, but was increasingly seen as a prestige language, particularly during Franco’s last years of dictatorship, and was undoubtedly a distinctive element of the Resistance and of the pro-democracy movement.

In spite of all this, the language was taught clandestinely and slowly became more or less tolerated by the regime even though it was legally banned. Soon the political context changed: shortly after the death of the dictator (1975) and the approval of a constitution for Spain in 1978 many of the democratic institutions could be re-established in Catalonia. A new Statute of Autonomy was drafted and entered into force in 1980 after being approved by referendum.

The Statute of 1979 fitted into the Spanish Constitution, which recognised linguistic plurality by resolving that other so-called Spanish languages different from Castilian could be granted co-official status with Spanish in those communities with their own language. However, the Spanish Constitution provided inequality of rights and duties between Castilian and the other languages of the State since, according to article 3, “Castilian is the Spanish official language of the State” and “all Spaniards have the duty to know it and the right to use it”, whereas the use of other languages was only considered a right but not a duty.

The Statute of Catalonia of 1979, still in force, provides official status for Catalan and includes for the first time the idea that “Catalan is Catalonia’s own language” but, as we pointed out before, such official status is shared with Castilian, the only official language in the whole State. The fact that Catalan was considered Catalonia’s own language, or the only language that is originally from the country, has helped the Generalitat to pass two language policy acts in 25 years of self-government. Although the application of the bills has made possible for almost the entire population to know Catalan and has allowed young people to be able to speak it and write it, they have not fulfil the expectations of making the language an indispensable tool to live in Catalonia. Castilian still is the dominant language in many domains (mass media, courts, State administration, business, etc.).

Another remarkable aspect is that it guarantees legal protection to Aranese -the Occitan spoken in the Aran Valley- through article 3.4 (“The Aranese language will be taught and will be the subject of particular respect and protection”).

Finally, the Statute of 1979 also foresees the endorsement of cultural and linguistic ties with the rest of Catalan-speaking territories under other autonomous or state administrations.

3. The proposed Statute of 2005

After 25 years in force, the Statute of 1979 seems not to be responding to the new needs of the Catalan society and to the expectations of a true self-government, and so a reform has been proposed. In fact, the revision is already a fact as there is a Proposed revision of the Catalan Statute of Autonomy approved by 120 out of 135 deputies of the Catalan parliament.

Under the new text drafted, Catalonia considers itself a nation articulated in a multinational State, raises a need for an improvement of the financial means, sets up a framework of bilateral relationship between Catalonia and the State and declares the will to live together in harmony with the other peoples of Spain. In general terms, the text is by far more unequivocal and precise than the other two Statutes.

The detailed concretion of contents and the can be explained by the fact that an sparse statutory regulation was seen as the source of a restrictive interpretation of the scope of linguistic rights. Therefore, articles referring to language are a step forward and a substantial progress in comparison with the former statutes. As innovations, the Proposal establishes in article 6 a regime of language equality between the two official languages of Catalonia (three if we bear in mind Aranese). As we said earlier, the protection of Spanish derives from article 3 of the Spanish Constitution, which states that all Spaniards have the duty to know it and and the right to use it. Thus, one of the proposes of declaring the duty to know Catalan is to put on the same legal level both languages. In other words: as the duty to know Spanish already exists, there must be –according to the Parliament of Catalonia- the same duty towards Catalan. Such a right was not included in former statutes as it was regarded unconstitutional, but the proposed revision clearly refers to it on the grounds that rights and duties are determined by individuals considered equal, not by languages themselves, their extension and number of speakers or other circumstantial aspects. Coherently the proposal includes a new sub article that sets Occitan as Aran Valley’s own language and declares it official in Catalonia, and another one referring to the need to achieve official status for Catalan in Europe [1].

Linguistic rights are given special attention as can be shown in articles 32 to 36. These articles regulate the right to language option before public administrations and State institutions; the right of consumers and users to be addressed in any of the official languages of Catalonia; the rights in relation to Aranese, and the language rights and duties in the education field.

4. Civil society proposals

In order to follow as much a democratic process as possible, the promoters got the civil society involved and asked for participation. A call for proposals period was opened in which NGO, associations, particulars, etc. were allowed to put forward their suggestions.

There were hundreds of contributions, and many of them concerned language policy. It would be unfeasible to include them all here. As an example of a significant contribution, we will give account of the proposals made by Observatory of the Catalan language, an independent body consisting of a whole series of civic and cultural associations and language experts. It has as its mission to offer an authoritative voice and assume the role of technical expert in the promotion of Catalan within the framework of national, State and international legislation in order to orient the institutions and entities that work in favour of the Catalan language and provide them with legal arguments.

Observatory recommended [2] that the new Statute should also identify Catalan as the national and common language. The adjectives are particularly meaningful because they lay emphasis on the fact that language is a universal tool belonging to all and underline the idea that many languages may be spoken and live together in a territory but there is only one –Catalan- shared by everyone that bonds people together and creates a sense of community no matter what language people regularly have as first language. In order to specify the scope of the idea expressed by those adjectives, Observatory proposed to incorporate an explicit allusion to education so that such a key element in a normalization process could not be dismantled.

Observatory pointed out other shortcomings and ambiguities and suggested several terminological changes to clarify and better define some aspects about linguistic rights and duties. Yet it also recommended to leave some issues open to interpretation as excess of definition could be counter-productive.

Finally, Observatory urged to draft a more favourable declaration of principles for Catalan because it would help to provide guidelines for subsequent decrees and regulations.

5. The course for a new Statute

As we write these lines, the text of the revised Statute has already passed through the stages of parliamentary procedure in Madrid and been accepted for discussion. The amendments are now on the table. As regards language issues, it seems that there is resistance to accept what the majority of the Catalan parliament approved. Negotiations are on the way and the outcome of the process remains to be seen. If the Proposed revision is significantly watered-down the Catalan parties could even decide to withdraw the Statute from the Congress in Madrid. If everything follows its due course, the resultant text would need to be approved by a majority of seats in the Spanish congress and then get the consent of the Spanish senate. Back to the Congress, it would be sanctioned by an organic law which would include the authorization to hold a plebiscite in Catalonia.

Needless to say, we will keep our readers informed about the course of events.

NOTES

1. For further information, read Mercator’s Dossier n. 17: http://www.ciemen.org/mercator/butlletins/60-49.htm (Catalan) http://www.ciemen.org/mercator/butlletins/60-48.htm (English) and the news on the agreements between the EU institutions and the Spanish government regarding languages http://www.ciemen.org/mercator/notidetail.cfm?IDA=857&lg=ct (Catalan) http://www.ciemen.org/mercator/notis.cfm?lg=gb#857 (English) [return to text]
2. The proposals made by Observatory have been taken from the report submitted by per Jordi Argelaguet. You can find the full-version text in Catalan at http://www.observatoridelallengua.org/htm/novetat.php?llengua=ca&opcio=novetats.php&id=32 [return to text]