The pro-independence party Junts (Together for Catalonia) has taken the initiative this Thursday in the Catalan Parliament in the face of the draft audiovisual law that the Spanish government is preparing which leaves Catalan and the state's other minoritized languages without protection. The party led by Carles Puigdemont has registered a bill in the Catalan chamber to amend the Catalan audiovisual law as a matter of urgency, in order to incorporate measures that promote Catalan production in the sector and guarantee the offer in the Catalan language on platforms such as Netflix or HBO, as sources have informed ElNacional.cat.
At the start of this week, a new draft emerged of the general communication law being prepared by Pedro Sánchez's cabinet, which obliges the popular streaming platforms to include content in Spanish official languages but does not distinguish between them - meaning that, given the relative size of the markets involved, platforms are unlikely to offer a significant amount of content in anything other than Castilian - and thus, the other languages of the state, among them Catalan, are certain to have very little presence in an entertainment and cultural sector which is now huge.
The law being prepared by Nadia Calviño's Spanish ministry responds to the European standard, which establishes obligations for subscription-based streaming platforms and was scheduled to be passed by the cabinet this past Tuesday. However, when the content of the preliminary draft was known, alarms sounded in Catalonia and the cabinet postponed its decision.
On Tuesday, Junts announced its intention to "go into battle" over the Spanish law with a new text in the Catalan Parliament, arguing that the norm that Calviño's ministry is working on does not help Catalan public broadcaster TV3, as well as invading areas of competence that belong to the Catalonia (through the Audiovisual Council of Catalonia) and harming s Catalan producers.
50% Catalan content in the 30% European quota
The proposal presented today by Junts proposes that, given the obligation imposed by the EU directive on such platforms to guarantee a minimum of 30% of European production, half of this percentage - that is 15% of the total content offer - must be in Catalan or Aranese and that where content in Catalan and Aranese is already dubbed or subtitled, this should be added to the catalogue.
In addition to the measures to promote production and to ensure an offer in Catalan on the platforms, the proposal promoted by Junts echoes the concern of the European directive to act against hate speech and misinformation, as well as to protect children and adolescents, with limitations on content that includes pornography, gratuitous violence, and gender-based violence. It also plans to attribute new powers to the Audiovisual Council of Catalonia to protect against content that encourages hatred or misinformation.
In the main image, the president of the Junts parliamentary group, Albert Batet / Junts