Read in Catalan

Is the EU really interested in cultural diversity? That's the question that MEP Clara Ponsatí raised this Thursday in the European Parliament. She challenged the EU to prove its support for the languages and human rights of its minorities, and she did so by referring to her own maternal language, Catalan. In fact, she spoke in Catalan for ten seconds - apologising to the parliamentary interpreters for the inconvenience. Officially, the use of Catalan is not permitted in the EU Parliament.

Ponsatí was speaking at the parliamentary presentation of the European citizens' initiative Minority Safepack. She mentioned that Catalan is spoken in three states of the Union and that it has ten million speakers, which means the language is the fourteenth most spoken in the European Union.

"Despite this I cannot use my language in the plenary or in committees of this Parliament. And for what reason? Because it is not official," she explained.

Ponsatí recalled that, by contrast, the official language with fewest speakers in the EU has 400,000 speakers. "So, why this difference?", she asked. "Simple: there is not a single EU member state interested in protecting the Catalan language. What are the consequences of this lack of interest? Many."

The former education minister recalled, as an example, that in 2017 only 8% of court rulings in Catalonia were written in Catalan, a proportion which had fallen greatly since 2004 when the figure reached its maximum - although this maximum was only 20% of total court decisions.

Linguistic and cultural diversity should be taken into account when allocating EU structural funds, concluded Ponsatí. "This initiative makes sense if the EU's commitment to cultural diversity, minority languages and human rights is real. If it is, let us be consistent and move forward."

The Minority Safepack initiative, which had its public hearing on Thursday in the plenary in Brussels, aims to protect national and linguistic minorities throughout Europe.