The Government of Catalonia has sent a letter to the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, to the European Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, and to members of the Council of Europe following the publication of the final report of the European Parliament’s Committee on Petitions on the language immersion system used in Catalan schools.

The Minister for Foreign Action and European Union, Meritxell Serret i Aleu, the Minister for Education, Anna Simó i Castelló and the Minister for Culture, Natàlia Garriga i Ibáñez, the letter’s signatories, express the Catalan government’s concern regarding the “fraudulent and partisan” use of the Committee, headed by the European People’s Party MEP Dolors Montserrat, and call for “the necessary steps”to be taken to establish accountability. It also calls for the conclusions of the report to be publicly amended, with acknowledgement of the European Parliament’s Committee on Petitions’ lack of authority over member states’ education systems.

According to the Catalan executive, the “misuse” of the Petitions Committee by its president is part of an “intensive campaign by Spain’s Partido Popular (PP), in partnership with Vox and the rest of the European extreme right, against the Catalan language”, and is part of an “entirely cynical” political strategy that seeks to “make learning Catalan difficult, encourage anti-Catalan feeling, and undermine the social cohesion provided by the Catalan school system.”

Finally, the Catalan Government, which describes itself as an “active and reliable” partner in the European project, warns that this exploitation of the Committee is “detrimental” to the reputation of the European Union, and calls on its political leaders to take responsibility in order to preserve democratic institutions.

Lack of authority

The letter recalls that the Committee on Petitions’ lack of authority to legislate on the education systems of member states or to issue public opinions on states’ policies is an argument that has also been repeatedly stressed by the European Commission. It also recalls that Montserrat acknowledged this herself when she refused to consider a complaint by a member of Greece’s Turkish minority who was asking for bilingual education in Greek and Turkish for children belonging to Greece’s Turkish-speaking minority, on the grounds that she lacked the authority to do so.

The Government of Catalonia noted “the biased use of the Commission by its president is for the sole purpose of promoting her personal agenda and satisfying party political interests”. The Catalan government had previously raised the issue with the presidency of the European Parliament on 20 February, and now “regrets” to note that some conclusions have been retained that “are not empirically proven”.

The success of language immersion in Catalonia

The Catalan government ministers Serret, Simó and Garriga also argue that the Catalan school language system has proven to be “a successful model” in the learning of the three official languages in Catalonia – Catalan, Spanish and Aranese – and that there is an “undeniable and robust” political, social and pedagogical consensus in Catalonia concerning the social cohesion created by this system, which has been recognised by UNESCO.

Likewise, “all of the Council of Europe’s reports on compliance with the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages have emphasised the high quality and good comparative results of the Catalan educational language policy”, say the ministers.

However, these reports call into question the educational language models implemented in areas governed by Spain’s Partido Popular. The members of the Government point out that since Spain’s PP came to power in the Valencian Community in 2023, it has implemented a series of measures aimed at reducing the presence of Catalan as a language of instruction, including the abolition of the requirement for 25% of classes to be taught in Catalan in the regions where Spanish predominates. Furthermore, the requirement for competence in Catalan for healthcare personnel has been abolished in the Balearic Islands.