The situation in Italy
Our newspaper explained it to us: the spokesman for the Italian Ministry of the Interior has announced that they already have bilingual police, and that they are working on an organization that will make it possible, in a short time, for all officials in certain areas to be bilingual . And he added that there are places where all police forms are written in two languages.
Alicia Fajardo has made a good summary of the case of the Trentino-Alto Adige region – where there is a part of the population that speaks a Tyrolean dialect close to the German spoken in the neighboring country, Austria – and the bordering areas with France and Yugoslavia. These appreciable linguistic minorities in the Italian State do not represent even a tenth of the people who speak Catalan in the Spanish State.
The Statute of the Alpine region of Alto Adige establishes equality between German and Italian in the public administration, and in order to comply with these rules, the necessary measures have been adopted so that all staff dependent on the State assigned to this territory speaks German.
The situation in Catalonia
With all due respect, it must be said that Alto Adige does not have, within the Italian State, the historical, cultural, demographic, etc. weight that the Catalan Countries have within the Spanish State. But it is clear that it is much more respected, or perhaps that the inhabitants of this territory know how to be respected.
We therefore have two claims to make to the Spanish State, regarding the written language and regarding the spoken language.
In the first area, it does not make sense that we Catalans are less well served than the South Tyroleans (Alto Adige). All printed matter and written communications from the various state departments that have a delegation in Catalonia – and I am not saying Catalan Countries in terms of the Statute – must present a Catalan version. Education, Governance, Finance, Industry, etc. We must defend this point of view as firmly and politically as possible, in order to force an official response, which will surely be in Spanish and negative. But for the record. That the arguments why the State cannot use, in Catalonia, Catalonia’s “own” language be set out.
As for the spoken language, is it too much to ask that we Catalans are treated like the minority in Alto Adige, where all state officials will also speak German? It will be necessary to prepare an action plan in this regard. It is now compulsory for police, justice, finance, etc. officials to understand Catalan. Do you think, however, of applying the Statute? Even more: in Alto Adige the officials will not only understand it, the “own” language of the territory, but they will speak it. Will the Spanish State take any steps along these lines, or will it keep its officials in a significant “foreign status”?