It is said in Madrid of Gabriel Rufián that he is someone who barks a lot but never bites. The 39-year-old sits for the Catalan left-wing Republicans in the Spanish Parliament, a House of Representatives in which there is generally a lot of barking, but now and then also being bitten. The way the MPs verbally attack one another has a ritual character. It has been particularly bad in the past few weeks. The derailments culminated at the moment when the conservative opposition leader Pablo Casado escaped a vulgar formulation against Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Sánchez did not let himself be infected by the anger of his counterpart and asked calmly: “How much coffee have you had today?”
The reason for the heated debates, even by Spanish standards, was that the negotiations on the state budget for the coming year had mixed up a topic that has always led to heated arguments in Spain: the question of languages. Or rather, the question of what space the other Spanish languages, Catalan, Basque and Galician, are given in addition to Castilian, which is known as “Spanish”.
Which brings you back to Gabriel Rufián, the Catalan politician who is known for barking. Rufián heads the faction of Esquerra Republicana, the left-wing Republicans provide the regional president in Catalonia. In Madrid they sit in Congress with twelve MPs – twelve decisive MPs, because the socialist Pedro Sánchez, head of a left-wing minority government, depends on the support of the regional parties from Catalonia and the Basque Country.
And this is exactly where Rufián started his knife: A few weeks before the deadline for the adoption of the 2022 budget expired, he threatened to only approve the draft if the central government in Madrid was more committed to promoting Catalan. Specifically, he called for a quota for streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime or HBO. In future, they should provide at least six percent of their content in regional languages such as Catalan, Basque and Galician.
Spanish prevails in the playground – probably because of the social media
The reason: More and more people in Catalonia fear that Catalan is gradually becoming extinct. In fact, surveys show that children and young people in particular speak less and less Catalan. According to a recent study, 28 percent of students never or almost never use the language at school. Especially in the school yard, Spanish prevails – which is probably also due to the influence of social media: There are more Spanish-speaking influencers than Catalan ones.
Catalan parents see a further threat in a recent ruling by the Supreme Court. This stipulates that in Catalonia 25 percent of the lessons must be held in Castilian, i.e. “Spanish”. 35,000 people demonstrated in Barcelona against this judgment, which pushes Catalan back as the language of instruction. The mood in the Spanish language dispute is also so heated because it touches wounds that still come from the Franco dictatorship. At that time, Catalan was forbidden. The resurgence of the regional languages is now for some a symbol of democratization. For the others, on the other hand, it is linked to the incited separatism that demanded independence in Catalonia in 2017.
The topic polarizes – and brings voices to the left-wing Republicans. For example, ERC parliamentary group leader Gabriel Rufián allowed himself to be carried away by linking the future of the Spanish government to the question of languages. A glance at neighboring Portugal shows that such a threat can be more than mere rhetoric. A left minority government there has just broken because it failed to meet the demands of smaller supporters. Should the government in Spain really falter over a dispute over films and series?
But Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has already demonstrated diplomatic skill and composure several times this year, for example when he pardoned Catalan separatists against opposition from all sides. The fact that he asks the furious opposition leader about his coffee consumption with a smile is just another example of how Sánchez has learned to exude sovereignty where the storm knocks him over. And so the socialist has also achieved a compromise in the Netflix dispute that everyone can live with.
Even Gabriel Rufián, who simply miscalculated when he demanded that global corporations take care of the preservation of regional Spanish languages. Sánchez promises a state fund into which the streaming portals will also pay and which will finance content in the regional languages. So – after a lot of barking – the budget can be passed this Tuesday just in time and the language dispute postponed for the time being. But at the latest when Spain is the guest country at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October, the old debates should boil up again.