Speaking in the European Parliament, and with the Spanish prime minister sitting virtually close enough to read his speech notes, the Catalan president-in-exile Carles Puigdemont has expressed his annoyance with the inability of Pedro Sánchez's Spanish government to successfully obtain official EU language status for the Catalan language. "Prime minister Sánchez, opportunities must be used when they present themselves, if they are missed due to fear or incapacity, the consequences are not pleasant," warned the pro-independence Catalan MEP.
Puigdemont gave this warning the day after the final meeting of the EU General Affairs Council during the current Spanish presidency of the EU was held without Spain being able to open the procedure to reform the Union's language regulations, as Spain had promised. The inclusion of Catalan, together with Galician and Basque, among the official languages of the EU was the commitment accepted by the Spanish Socialists (PSOE) to ensure that Puigdemont's Together for Catalonia (Junts) voted in favour of Francina Armengol as speaker of the Congress of Deputies. This was the first step in a series of accords which ended with an agreement for Junts to support Sánchez's investiture as new Spanish PM. Just yesterday, Puigdemont had made a social media post expressing his displeasure at the Spanish executive's failure to comply and demanding that Sánchez be ready to defend Catalan, if necessary, before the European Court of Justice.
Carles Puigdemont (Junts) (dubbed in English): "I'm talking to you in your mother tongue, but I'm unable to do so in my own".
Puigdemont, who gave his speech in Spanish, warned Sánchez that Europe's problem has never been the promises made, but rather, the promises broken. He warned that "mistrust is born of non-compliance, which can even put at risk a project as important as the EU", and that the 'Europe of the people' means nothing if they are not listened to.
"I speak to him in his mother tongue, but I can't do so in my own", denounced Puigdemont, warning that millions of Europeans who have Catalan as their mother tongue cannot use it in Europe. "Our language of expression in this chamber is worth less than theirs," the Catalan president-in-exile stated.
The same sentiments were echoed in the Strasbourg chamber this Wednesday by the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) MEP Jordi Solé, who criticized that Spain's six-month rotating presidency of the EU Council did not succeed in achieving official language for Catalan and warned, in Catalan, that "for linguistic justice, for the rights of millions of European Catalan speakers, for the diversity that really exists in Europe, the battle for Catalan in Europe is a just battle that must be continued and it is urgent to win it."
Jordi Solé (ERC) (in Spanish): "Due to the real linguistic diversity that exists in Europe, the battle for Catalan in Europe must continue and must be won"
Izaskun Bilbao of the Basque Nationalists (PNV) warned his party will be "demanding" over the presence of Basque in the EU, while the Galician Ana Miranda made her intervention in Galician, given that Portugal makes this one of the official languages.
The language issue, however, only featured in the speeches by politicians from the peripheral nations of the Iberian peninsula - the Catalans, Basques and Galicians. Sánchez's appearance before the European Parliament was particularly marked by the tension in Spanish politics in relation to the Catalan amnesty bill, which yesterday was the subject of its first tense debate in the Congress of Deputies.