August 2005

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THE NEW BIPARTITE GOVERNMENT IN GALICIA AGREES UPON MEASURES TO INCREASE THE USE OF GALICIAN

August 2005 - The Galician sector of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSdG) and the nationalist Bloque Nacionalista Galego (BNG) reached an agreement last July on governing Galicia for the next four years. These two parties, which have taken out of office the Spanish conservatives (PP), in power in the autonomous community since 1990, signed a “program-contract” for a bipartite government that aims, as regards language issues, “to consolidate the cultural and linguistic traits of the Galician identity”, “to make progress in the normalization of our language, to protect and value our culture and heritage, key elements of our identity as a people” and “to promote policies to recover speakers of Galician and to extend its normal use in all social fields”.

Apart from this general declaration of intention, the agreement clearly establishes several specific measures to counterbalance the previous linguistic policies. To begin with, it says that the new government will endorse cultural exchange with Portuguese-speaking countries. Far from being a symbolic step to promote the language, and given the fact that both Galician and Portuguese are closely related and originally were the same language, this would reinforce the affiliation with a non-endangered language, which, according to many linguists, would not leave Galician isolated facing the pressure of Spanish. The agreement also foresees the strict fulfilment of the Galician Language Plan approved in 2004 through propper fundings, surveys and an annual report. It confirms the need for the creation of an institute for the external promotion of the Galician language. Besides, it points out that the Galician government will use Galician in all its oral and written communications, promote its normal use in all services offered by the local and the autonomous administrations and will guarantee the right of the Galician citizens to be adressed in Galician by the institutions. The bipartite agreed upon several issues on other fields. As regards to media, it will give its backing to a broadcasting percentage increase Galician. In relation to justice, the agreement will sponsor the normalization of Galician in the courts by, amognst other measures, establishing as a necessary requirement the knowledge of Galician for judges and other staff; moreover, the document states that all actions and legal proceedings of the Galician administration before judicial instances will be in Galician. In the area of education, the agreement points out that the new government will support the immediate application of the measures for the normalisation of the language compiled in the Plan for Normalisation approved by the Galician parliament in 2004 with unanimity of votes. It will also design an specific plan of support for the knowledge of Galician by immigrant students, and will promote new teaching materials and computer programs in Galician.