Madrid subsidies for Catalonia
Who's going to pay for it?

November 7, 2021

Probably a very large majority of Catalans want to maintain their culture and their three languages. That's okay it needs money for that from the state that's also okay but who should pay for the maintenance of Catalan, one of the Catalan languages?

Spain, from which the separatists seek independence? Spain, with which they want nothing to do and which is therefore portrayed as fascist by many separatists.

And for whom is the money? The separatists have made an offer to the Spanish government that they could not refuse.

It is normal and completely justified for a people to invest in their culture and language. In Catalonia there are three official languages. Spanish is the mother tongue of the majority, Catalan the mother tongue of a large minority and a small minority speaks Aranese. Also a very large majority is probably bilingual, i.e. Spanish and Catalan.

Let us not forget that the Catalan government does not invest in the maintenance of all three languages in equal or corresponding shares, but almost exclusively in Catalan and additionally in the outlawing and persecution of all Spanish. For example, companies that communicate in Spanish instead of Catalan are penalised.

But that is not enough! For the maintenance of the Catalan language, it demands money from the Spanish government. Because of the complicated majority situation after the last elections, Spanish President Pedro Sánchez needs approval for the Spanish budget from the Catalan separatists. The deal is therefore that if Sánchez wants to get his budget through parliament, he has to comply with the separatists' ideas and make sure that the Spanish Audiovisual Law (Ley audioviusal) includes money for the Catalan language.

The newspaper El Confidencial describes it this way: „The amendment (to the Ley Audiovisual) must contain three points: 1. Quotas for the dubbing of content from the platforms into Catalan, 2. Subsidies for production in Catalan and 3. A tax to be used to fund TV3.“ TV3 is the state-funded Catalan separatist-controlled television channel.

Hypocritically, it is also asking for a translation into Galician and Basque. Hypocritical, because none is demanded for Valenciano and Mallorquin, because the inhabitants of the Balearic Islands and the province of Valencia are supposed to speak Catalan instead of their own regional language, the separatists claim these provinces as Catalan countries.

For the subsidisation of Netflix productions (which is one of the platforms mentioned in the law), a dubbing of 5% in Catalan is required. Of course, the same goes for Rakuten, a Japanese internet bank, or Filmin, a Spanish film platform, as the Spanish news 20minutos notes. Out of 2,000 films on Netflix, only 4 are dubbed in Catalan.

Are Netflix shareholders already looking forward to the money from Madrid? As far as I know, it is not yet clear how the financial arrangement will work. But surely only a small part of it will end up with those who are supposed to do the actual work for Catalan audio productions. These are supposed to be almost 30,000 people whose votes the separatists are hoping to gain. Paid for by Madrid - Separatists laughing and patting themselves on their backs.

Of course it is cruel to lose one's place of income (vulgo job). Shouldn't we talk about what could be done to shorten working hours with full wage compensation? We produce much more than we consume, just think of how much food we throw in the bin every year. According to BBC estimates, that totals 900 million tonnes a year worldwide, and that certainly doesn't apply to Third World countries.

But now we are off the subject. We are not supposed to discuss that. We are supposed to argue about languages instead of talking about solutions to social problems. That's what Spanish language policy is all about in Madrid as in Barcelona.

What, also in Madrid? Think back to November 2019, when the PSC, the Catalan subsidiary of President Sánchez's PSOE, demanded at its XIV Congress that children throughout Spain should learn Catalan. It is not clear whether this demand was intended to create more jobs for Catalan translators or was simply megalomania.

It should also be remembered that in Galicia, where the conservative PP is in power, the same compulsory use of the Gallego language prevails as for Catalan in Catalonia. So, too, all* Spanish ruling parties want themselves to determine the distribution of language teaching in schools instead of the parents.

Therefore, another reminder. Article 26(3) of the UN resolution on human rights states: „Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.“

However, there is no UN resolution that other peoples must pay for the maintenance of the Catalan language and culture.
* The exception is the radical right-wing VOX



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