The Catalan News reports today that Catalan pro-independence party ERC and the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE party have agreed a draft text that will reform the rules of the Spanish Congress and pave the way for the use of Catalan, Basque and Galician in the parliament. Sánchez has also agreed to seek that the 3 languages become official EU languages.
Linguists have welcomed the move that will bring more visibility to the languages and ‘help them become more normalised’.
Whether Sánchez is able to form a government of the left in the months ahead remains in the hands of the other pro Catalan independence party Together for Catalonia (Junts per Catalunya) who recently helped elect a PSOE Speaker of Congress Francina Armengol (a fluent Catalan speaker).
However former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont said that it was “in no way” linked to the choice of a new prime minister.
Junts is pursuing a referendum on Catalan independence and an amnesty for those being prosecuted over the 2017 independence referendum. ERC has also stated that the amnesty issue is a red line for them.
Without a deal between PSOE and the Catalan parties another election seems highly likely in January.
Of course Partido Popular Leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo has been given first dibs on forming a government but it is all but certain that he will fall just short in the weeks ahead.
Its a Catalan call to make.
Twitter : @daithimckay
