Brussels, 20/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament's Petitions Committee examined a petition from the "Convivencia Civica Catalana" Committee relating to linguistic discrimination of which the victims would be the Castillian speaking students in Catalan schools. Alejo Vidal-Quadras (EPP, Spain) pleaded against the "linguistic normalisation" process launched, according to him, by the government of Catalonia in view of making Catalan practically the only official language of the autonomous community, to the detriment of Castillian, the official language of Spain. Mr Vidal-Quadras asserts that it is especially at the level of primary education that the scales have moved in favour of Catalan. Families that want to have their children taught in Castillian will no longer have any other choice than to ask for extra classes for their children, which becomes a form of "segregation" compared to those who only learn Catalan.
The European Commission representative indicated that the issues of linguistic discrimination are outside the competence of his institution when they are part of the educational system of the Member States. Insisting on respect for subsidiarity, several MEPs also took their distance compared to to statements of Mr Vidal-Quadras. Non of them felt that this did not correspond with a reality of the policy and society of Catalonia.
In conclusion of this debate, the President of the Petitions Committee, Vitaliano Gemelli (Christiabni democratici uniti) underlined that linguistic diversity is a true European treasure. So as to conciliate the positions, he suggested closing the petition, of a general nature, presented by Mr Vidal-Quadras, but confirmed the availability of his Committee to examine all the specific cases, even isolated, of linguistic discrimination in Catalonia which could be brought to his attention.