The Catalan governing coalition is trying to ride out the turbulence between its two partners, ERC and Junts, over how to respond to the Catalan High Court's ultimatum demanding the immediate adoption of the 25% Spanish language quota in all Catalan classrooms. Before today's weekly cabinet meeting, president Pere Aragonès and senior Junts officials met to try to reduce the tension. The issue, however, remains open, although a collision has so far been avoided. The government spokesperson, Patrícia Plaja, made it clear in the post-cabinet press conference that the government has not given up the plan to reform the Catalan language policy law "with the support of as many parties as possible" and "as soon as possible", but at the same time it has announced that it is "working on the option" of a decree to "defend the schools and the teaching projects". "The government is working to respond in all areas, and none of these is exclusive," she said.
Junts formally notified the Bureau of Parliament yesterday of its decision to withdraw "its signature and support" from the bill amending the language policy law, which it had agreed on together with the PSC, ERC and the Comuns, on March 24th, before reconsidering its view. At the same time, the party's executive sent the president, Pere Aragonès, a proposal for a decree to guarantee the application of language immersion of Catalan in schools, protect school principals and teachers from legal action and leave the validation of educational projects in the hands of the Catalan department of education.
ERC-Junts summit
The special meeting held prior to today's regular cabinet meeting, was attended, on the ERC side, by president Aragonès, presidency minister Laura Vilagrà, culture minister Natàlia Garriga, the secretary general of language policy Francesc Xavier Vila, and the director of Pere Aragonès's office, Sergi Sabrià. Present on behalf of Junts were Catalan vice-president Jordi Puigneró, the party general secretary Jordi Sànchez, speaker of the house Laura Borràs, party vice-president Jordi Turull, and the president of the parliamentary group, Albert Batet.
Despite these moves, this morning while the government was meeting, the parliamentary groups of PSC, ERC and the Comuns called on Junts to rejoin the agreement in the next 24 hours, adding that, unless they do, the initiative to reform the law will go forward so that it can be considered by the Catalan chamber at next week's plenary session.
Government appeal
When asked about these differences between the government partners, spokesperson Plaja repeatedly insisted on calls for "maximum consensus and unity" on the defence of the Catalan school model, which she said was a "national issue", stressing that "Junts and ERC are working on their consensus within the government" while circumscribing the talks among the parliamentary groups to the context of Parliament. Plaja admitted that the decree proposed by Junts had been addressed during the cabinet meeting as well as at a previous meeting.
At the same time, the government's legal office will today present an appeal to reverse the order requiring the immediate execution of the 25% Spanish ruling. The office considers that the pressure group Asamblea por una escuela bilingüe, whose court initiative led to the execution ruling, has no legitimacy to request such execution of the sentence and the fact that the court order is based on its position not only violates the law of litigation but is also contrary to jurisprudence. The Catalan government is thus requesting the interim suspension of the effects of the ruling until a decision on this appeal is decided.