Catalonia calls the European Parliament’s draft of Catalan in schools a “clump of lies”

The Government spokesperson, Patrícia Plaja, has described as a “clump of lies” the preliminary report being finalized by the European Parliament’s Petitions Committee on the mission that visited Catalonia in December to analyze linguistic immersion in the Catalan educational system. “It is a report from one party, no surprise regarding this accumulation of lies,” she stated this Tuesday at a press conference after the meeting of the Executive Council. The spokesperson for the Catalan Executive has maintained that “the Petitions Committee of the European Parliament has been used to create a false story.” This draft calls for equal treatment in the use of Catalan and Spanish in Catalan schools and includes a call to the European Commission to “closely follow” the respect for cultural and linguistic diversity by the Generalitat. This preliminary text will be debated this Wednesday in the Petitions Committee and may still undergo modifications in its recommendations during the amendment period, until it is adopted in its final form in mid-March. WITHOUT “RIGOROUS WORK” Sources from the Generalitat have maintained that the Government respects the European institutions and their instruments and has made itself “at the full disposal” of the Petitions commission and the mission of MEPs that visited Catalonia. However, the same sources insist that this commission “has in no way done rigorous work” when it comes to finding out about linguistic immersion, and they have accused the PP of using European Parliament resources in a partisan and diverted manner. “It is a campaign of the right and the extreme right carried out with the resources of the European Parliament,” criticize the same sources, who call the use and manipulation that they consider the popular members of the commission to be making as shameful.