The bridges between the Generalitat and the Valencian Academy of Language, AVL, have not been broken. On the contrary, after a two-hour meeting between President Carlos Mazón and the president of the AVL, Verònica Cantó, opening avenues of collaboration under the premise, recognized by the popular leader, that the regulatory authority in the Valencian Community on the language The AVL has it.
But Carlos Mazón has asked Cantó for several things. Among these "recover the founding spirit of the Academy", "jointly revalencianize the linguistic criteria of the Generalitat Valenciana for which the collaboration of the AVL is requested" and "hold a bilateral session with members of the AVL and the Ministry of Education, headed by Minister José Antonio Rovira, to begin a process of sensitivity and joint coordination "and, also.
The president has highlighted that "it cannot be that there are Valencian-speakers who feel outside the regulations, Valencian belongs to everyone and everyone has to be identified, whether or not they speak it every day." In this sense, he has asked to start an open and permanent process so that no Valencian feels excluded or distanced from the institutions that represent him since "social and political Valencianism has felt too distant in recent years" from the AVL, whose " academic and scientific authority" recognizes "the whole world"
Cantó, for his part, has not interpreted the meeting as interference by the executive branch in the work of the statutory institution and has taken for granted a period of institutional loyalty. The highest authority of the AVL has assumed that all departments will respect the current regulations, while he has defended that the Academy will continue to be governed by "scientific and rigorous criteria."
Of course, the president has indicated that she, already upon taking office, advocated building bridges with centuries-old institutions such as the Royal Academy of Valencian Culture, which she recalled has been used as one of the sources for the normative dictionary.
Cantó has pointed out that the president has not asked him to move away from the Institut d'Estudis Catalans or the Ramón Llull Institute and that they have not talked about the unity of the language. In this regard, he has been forceful and has pointed out that the dictionary is very clear and transparent and says that "Balearics, Catalans and Valencians share a language."
Although already in the electoral pre-campaign the Valencian PP threatened to distance itself and question the role of the AVL, the controversy already broke out in the Government of the Generalitat following some statements by the Minister of Education, José Antonio Rovira, in those who stated that he did not believe that the Academy had "the absolute truth, as no one has" about the Valencian.
Rovira, after the controversy over the fact that the Department of Agriculture (in the hands of Vox) used a non-normative Valencian on social networks, asked "why won't the minister of whatever have the freedom to choose his standards" in their communications.
The extreme right quickly jumped on the controversy bandwagon and the AVL itself responded to the person responsible for Education. "Valencian, our language, the historical language of the Valencians, needs to be used in all areas in a homogeneous way and to be dignified. Any fragmentation or diversification of the linguistic norm is outside of common sense, outside of a vision of future and outside the institutional sense that we expect from our rulers," he replied, arguing that the body that, according to the Statute, has regulatory jurisdiction over the Valencian.
The controversy grew and even Eduardo Zaplana himself gave his opinion and defended the validity of an institution that, in his opinion, served to “pacify a conflict that was very present in society” and allowed the debate to be removed “from the political sphere to "confine it to the academic field."
Finally, Mazón had to intervene to qualify his councilor's words and admit, not without demanding more sensitivity, that the AVL is the institution that has the regulatory capacity.
