So much was the pitcher to the source, that in the end it broke. The reform of the Language Policy law that was agreed at the end of March by ERC, Junts, PSC and En Comú Podem was in the intensive surveillance unit since he was born, but he went into a coma yesterday, when Junts announced that he was getting off the hook. The formation explained, after several weeks of discreet negotiations and a constant buzz, that it would not participate in this reform, considering that it lacks the consensus required by the educational sector and the entities that promote Catalan, and that the initial formula is already insufficient, his opinion, to shield linguistic immersion in schools after the last judicial pronouncement.
The matter, essential in Catalan politics, and central to the pro-independence ranks and the Government of the Generalitat, has ended up adding more tension to the bag of discrepancies between the two partners of the Catalan Executive, this time without the need for the CUP, who from the beginning burst into the debate with a proposal of his own. If Junts yesterday accused the other members of the initial pact of “disloyalty”, from which the formation distanced itself only a few hours later, the Republicans considered that their partner’s position was “partisan”.
With the consensus shattered, everyone points to Junts as responsible while throwing the ball onto the ERC roof. The Republicans want a pact with their partner and will go through that route until the term expires, which they calculate will expire at the end of the month, in light of the latest ruling from the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), which urges compliance with their ruling on 25% of Spanish in 15 business days.
ERC shakes off the pressure by assuring that it does not rule out carrying out the reform with the PSC and En Comú Podem, without JxCat, as socialists and commons demand. And they charge the inks against the postconvergents for their fright.
The spokesman and vice president of Junts, Josep Rius, justified the step back by lamenting that the three conditions that had been set for the agreement to prosper were not accepted. They were reduced to maintaining Catalan as the vehicular language without interpretive, legal or linguistic doubts; protect teachers and the management of the centers by validating the educational and linguistic projects from the Government, and maintain the reception classrooms.
In Junts they regret that those conditions announced weeks ago in Parliament were not met despite the fact that contacts and the exchange of proposals were still taking place. That neglect and the TSJC’s interlocutory this week precipitated yesterday’s announcement of JxCat renouncing its participation in the reform.
Junts’ recipe is to submit its own proposal to the Government which, according to parliamentary sources, would involve approving a decree to reform the Education Law of Catalonia (LEC), something that the Government is already working on. But ERC believes that this reform alone will not be enough to safeguard Catalan from the percentages set by “judicial interference”. The Socialists recall that the Language Policy Law is the normative umbrella that protects the LEC, therefore, the most effective dressing to plug the wound opened by the courts.
Rius pointed out that the decision was adopted by the party’s permanent secretariat – which includes Laura Borràs and Jordi Turull – “unanimously”. And in anticipation of the criticism that rained down shortly after, the spokesman rejected “lessons from any party, least of all from the PSC”, after recalling that the Socialists “could have done many things in Madrid” in defense of Catalan.
Shortly after, the ERC spokeswoman, Marta Vilalta, criticized the “irresponsibility” of her partner and disdained the “resignation” of Junts, who, in the opinion of the Republicans, acts for party interests. “Doing nothing, not having an answer or an alternative, is not an option,” Vilalta criticized, and used harshly against the Government’s partners by “verifying that they impose the interests of the party on those of the country, tactics, and they leave the language at the mercy of the courts”, he stressed.
The tension between ERC and Junts was evident yesterday in the Parlament, but both formations saved the questions about whether the stability of the Government was affected by this clash. “We will not destabilize”, Vilalta settled, because “this is the best Government for this moment”.
On the other side were the PSC and the comuns, criticizing Junts and pressuring the ERC to agree to approve the reform of the law without Junts. The PSC denounced the “lack of seriousness” and the “tacticalism” of Carles Puigdemont’s formation, but faced with the risk that the ERC’s legs would shake due to the position of Junts and the CUP, it demanded “high vision” and not be dragged.
The socialist spokeswoman Alícia Romero did not close the door to incorporating modifications to the reform, but insisted on the ineffectiveness of the Junts recipe if it is reduced to approving a decree law on the LEC. “Law decrees cannot regulate rights, that is why the best solution we found was the reform of the Language Policy Law”, she argued.
The commons were more explicit in asking the ERC to validate the reform without Junts in an extraordinary plenary session. Jéssica Albiach referred to the announcement of JxCat as “the chronicle of an announced desertion” and lamented that the formation “has no word, nor does it present alternatives.” She summoned ERC not to succumb: “Just because Junts doesn’t have a say doesn’t mean ERC doesn’t,” and added that “it’s a matter of putting the country ahead of the party.”
Before Junts got out of the car, the Minister of Education, Josep Gonzàlez-Cambray, was willing to do “whatever was necessary to protect the addresses of the educational centers” before the order of the TSJC. In statements to TV3, he prioritized “avoiding the courts from addressing educational centers”, for which he admitted that it was “very likely” to send an instruction to the centers informing about how to apply the order of the TSJC, although he did not go into details.
The minister is preparing an appeal before the court order that, however, could not paralyze the 15-day period for its execution, but appealed to the “essential” reform of the language policy law “to get ahead and strengthen the school model Catalan”.
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