While the co-official languages already have official status in Congress and are making their way into European institutions, in the two Catalan-speaking communities other than Catalonia they suffer attacks due to the presence of Vox in their institutions, some unprecedented as in the case of Balearic Islands. The far-right party registered yesterday in the Balearic Parliament a bill that should allow the creation and regulation of the Office for the Guarantee of Linguistic Freedom, which would force the institutional use of Spanish and promote the use of Mallorcan, Menorcan, and Ibizan. and the Formentera native.
Faced with the voices of alarm from the opposition, the Government of the popular Marga Prohens has indicated this Friday that it was not aware of and has not agreed on this text and its spokesperson, Antoni Costa, has indicated that "there will not be a single legal text that will be approved in the Parliament that does not comply with the Statute of Autonomy". In fact, the PP has demanded that Vox withdraw the proposal since "they don't like the text presented, not a little, not at all," according to its parliamentary spokesperson, Sebastià Sagreras.
The office that Vox intends, which would have the power to impose fines of up to 100,000 euros, would be developed with the law registered yesterday, and Vox hopes that it will be approved as soon as possible under the investiture pact signed with the PP that provided for its creation in point 58. In this sense, the Government spokesperson recalled that "what has been agreed is that an Office of Linguistic Freedom will be created" and not this specific bill. Likewise, he has indicated that "the processing of the project will depend on the parliamentary groups."
This Friday, the PSIB demanded that Prohens provide a position on this measure. Its spokesperson in the Parliament, Iago Negueruela, has assured that it is a "law of linguistic imposition", it represents "an amendment to the entire plurality of the Balearic Islands", which is why he has called it "anti-constitutional and anti-statutory" and has asked that the House "not admit it for consideration." He has also announced that, if approved, the PSIB "would fail to comply" wherever it has powers.
Along the same lines, MÉS per Mallorca has described the bill as "the biggest attack on the Catalan language in 40 years" and has announced that to combat it "it will use all the political, social and judicial tools at its disposal." The eco-sovereignty party warns that the Law means "ending linguistic normalization and the Statute of Autonomy of the Balearic Islands", which is why it has stated that "it will not allow this attack on its own language", as indicated in a statement. "Will the PP Government of Marga Prohens allow this infamy?" said its parliamentary spokesperson, Lluís Apesteguia, for whom if the norm were approved "it would mean going much further than what the Government of José Ramón Bauzá dared to do." .
In a press release, Vox explained yesterday that the objective of the new office will be to "defend freedom of use and linguistic choice" and "promote the protection of both Spanish and the linguistic modalities of the different islands, which for some time For more than 30 years they have suffered the application of pan-Catalan regulations", something that, from the party's point of view, was "an imposition that made the use of Spanish difficult". These linguistic mosalities are detailed in the bill: "Majorcan, Menorcan, Ibizan and Formentera."
The text written by Vox regrets that "the abandonment and banishment of Spanish has reached such a point that in practically all the institutions of the Islands all writings, regulations, communications and information require the obligation to use Catalan and, therefore, the impossibility or, at least, broad limitations to use Spanish".
For this reason, it is intended to guarantee, according to its second article, the use of Spanish throughout the Government, the councils, the town councils, the Parliament, the University of the Balearic Islands and the rest of the public organizations and administrations, including Justice.
The text also empowers the office, if it is aware of a fact that "may violate the right to linguistic freedom and the regulations that protect it," to "act ex officio" and contact "the body or entity of the administration or natural or legal person involved". And it allows citizens to "report that the right to linguistic freedom has been violated, with the intention that appropriate measures be adopted."
