Pro-Catalan language pressure group Plataforma per la Llengua has asked the president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, to take steps to ensure equal language rights for all languages - mentioning Catalonia's three official languages, Catalan, Occitan and Spanish - and as well has demanded that the Catalan language be given more support from the European Parliament and the EU institutions.
In a press statement issued this Sunday, the Catalan group explained that it had written to Tajani following his order for the European Parliament's Barcelona office to incorporate Spanish language into its signage and corporate image, which in turn had been a response to a complaint from Spanish MEP Enrique Calvet on the "exclusivity" of Catalan in the office's written language use.
The Plataforma press release affirms that at present "there are severe shortcomings which mean that equality of rights for all linguistic groups in Catalonia is not guaranteed" and urged Tajani to also include Occitan in the European Parliament's office in Barcelona, and to add Catalan, Basque and Galician content to its Madrid office, since it serves the entire Spanish state.
The pressure group also asserted the right to use Catalan in the European Parliament and that "the only way to guarantee full linguistic rights for Catalan in Europe is to give it full official status in the EU". Moreover, the group requested a meeting with Tajani "to achieve true linguistic equality" and the recognition of Catalan as an official language in the EU.