The Council of Majorca has joined the battle to defend the rights of local authorities to award grants to businesses for their signs and other material to be in Catalan. The Council is make available 250,000 euros for this purpose, and the move is a direct challenge to the stance of the former Council president and now national government delegate, the Partido Popular's Maria Salom.
The government delegation has challenged the use of town hall funds for this purpose. Two town halls have been affected - Pollensa and Capdepera. In the case of Pollensa, a court has rejected the provisional suspension of the town hall's grants that had been requested by the delegation. It was the state attorney's office which officially appealed against a town hall decision that was made at the February council meeting; the attorney was representing the delegation and the national ministry of the presidency.
Pollensa's mayor, Miquel Àngel March, says that the grants will be available, at least for now. He considers the appeal against the grants to have been "absurd and pointless" and has observed that these sorts of grants have commonly been given by town halls in the past.
The town hall had only set aside 6,000 euros for grants. The Council of Majorca's investment is therefore significantly greater. One of the Council's two vice-presidents, Jesús Jurado, says that it is an obligation to comply with the law on linguistic normalisation that was introduced in 1986. This was a measure brought in by the Partido Popular and is, explains Jurado, "an instrument to guarantee the survival of Catalan".
The delegation has argued that the grants are not an example of encouraging Catalan as one of the two co-official languages but are instead a means of eliminating Castellano. There are a number of members of the Partido Popular in the Balearics who themselves are uneasy with the delegation's legal challenge.
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You can tell from his body language that he won’t listen to a good idea like...spend the money on Mallorca’s appalling schools to give kids the same chances as on the mainland...including English as a second language!
I said years ago that this freebie discriminates against the co-oficial language (castellano). Ratepayers money should not be used for business grants neither for companies that publicise in catalán nor in castellano. But this continues in Pollença anyway. Just opening tomorrow is a mega chinese emporium called 'Poco de Todo' with a large expensive sign. So no grants there then. Shame for them they didn't call it 'Poc de Tot' !
Somehow think Pollensa has got its priorities wrong, far more important things being ignored for the sake of 'national heritage'.Will be of little importance when the bubble bursts - which it surely will. Back to empty buildings,longer dole queues,high unemployment and a definite fall in the standard of living for those unable to escape (due to unwillingness to embrace progress/ modernisation in language diversification.)
A lot of tourists will understand some Spanish but few,if any,will understand Catalan but maybe it's in readiness for when tourists go elsewhere.?
I thought Mallorca had its own language somewhat related to but by no means always similar to Catalan? If you wish to be accurate then use Mallorquin.
Yes, all the tourists understand Catalan! Very parochial in this EU.
Catalan, Catalan, Catalan. Destroying a generation of youth. An island that every child could easily be speaking four languages fluently by the age of 11. This Catalan narrow mindedness.