Citizens promote a law to decriminalize the use of Spanish in Catalan commerce

The president of Ciudadanos in Catalonia, Carlos Carrizosa, called the media this Thursday at the Portal de l'Àngel in Barcelona to present a parliamentary initiative that aims to liberalize the use of languages ​​in commerce in the face of the regulations that in The subject has been introducing "interventionist nationalism" from the Government.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
17 January 2024 Wednesday 21:29
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Citizens promote a law to decriminalize the use of Spanish in Catalan commerce

The president of Ciudadanos in Catalonia, Carlos Carrizosa, called the media this Thursday at the Portal de l'Àngel in Barcelona to present a parliamentary initiative that aims to liberalize the use of languages ​​in commerce in the face of the regulations that in The subject has been introducing "interventionist nationalism" from the Government.

For Ciudadanos, this legal modification is necessary, which will be conveyed through a bill, in the field of business and consumption, because, in Carrizosa's opinion, merchants are suffering administrative pressure to attend to and label preferably in Catalan, which, in addition to being counterproductive and not giving the expected results, according to what he claims, threatens market freedom.

In this sense, the leader of Ciudadanos in the Parliament has recalled that commerce adapts to the clientele and that in a city like Barcelona, ​​in addition to the two official languages, the stores are served in Russian, English, French and Italian, whenever possible, so, from their point of view, it makes no sense that there are "patrols of linguistic informers" that "harass" shop assistants who have not learned Catalan.

Carrizosa has alluded in this way to some controversies that have arisen as a result of complaints on social networks about establishments in which, usually served by people belonging to the Latin community, the client has not been well understood when expressing himself in Catalan. "The sanction will be imposed by the market," stated the Ciudadanos leader when referring to these situations to reject the imposition of administrative fines, since the regulations require that anyone who requests it be served in Catalan.

"There are employees who have only been in the country for a short time and do not yet understand Catalan, so it is morally reprehensible that this is required of them," Carrizosa exclaimed in reference to workers from the Latin community who have arrived in Catalonia in the current migratory wave. "You have to have very few scruples about harassing a person for not speaking in Catalan," she exclaimed.

"It is not necessary for the administration to become unfriendly," insisted Carrizosa, who proposes repealing the "repressive apparatus" that, in his opinion, has been articulated in the Catalan consumer law or in the language policy law and has used the opinion of the Constitutional Court on the illegality of sanctions for labeling in Spanish as jurisprudence.

However, the leader of Ciudadanos is aware that his initiative, which he hopes will be supported by both the PP and Vox, will not have a legislative effect given the correlation of forces in the Parliament, which is why he has urged the PSC, which he has accused of " complicity with separatism", to study the situation out of "political responsibility" and to no longer give "cover" to the "imposition of Catalan at all costs".