Josep de Luis of the Obra Cultural Balear. | Teresa Ayuga

TW

The Obra Cultural Balear (OCB) is an organisation that promotes Catalan language and culture. It has joined the discussion about the spending of tourist tax revenue by calling on tourism minister Bel Busquets to use part of the revenue for "standardising" Catalan within the tourism sector.

At a meeting with Busquets, the OCB president, Josep de Luis, made this proposal. Revenue should be used, for example, for Catalan language courses for hospitality workers. He observed that there are currently courses for other languages, such as English and German, but workers "often don't know our language because they come from other regions".*

In general, the OCB has expressed its satisfaction with the government's approach to cultural issues. However, it believes that greater efforts need to be made regarding language policies before the period of the current administration ends next spring.

De Luis offered the OCB's support for everything that defends the rights of citizens and told Busquets, more in her role as government vice-president, that political institutions and society need to "close ranks" in demanding greater sovereignty and self-government for the Balearics.

* A purpose for tourist tax revenue spending is training, though there is no specific mention of languages.