La llengua en el procés de reforma de l'Estatut d'autonomia de Catalunya (2004-2006)

Pons Parera, Eva
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The Autonomy Statute, as the basic institutional rule which regulates Catalonia’s self-government, could not ignore the linguistic issue as the expression of a cultural and identity trait. In the recent Statute reform process, which started in 2004 and ended in June 2006 linguistic regulation was substantially increased. This meets a double objective: on the one hand, the consolidation of the linguistic body of laws current in Catalonia, by giving the principles and linguistic rights contained in all the previous linguistic legislation statutarian rank, and on the other hand, to make progress in certain aspects, with the introduction of a series of new linguistic prerogatives. The political and parliamentarian scenario in which the process set out was favourable in order to reach the necessary agreements to pass the reform. During the parliamentary proceedings in Catalonia, the linguistic regulation received wide support from the parties promoting the reform (ciu, psccpc, erc and icv) and was not highlighted within the general opposition to the reform by the ppc. On the contrary, the linguistic issue was the centre of many of the debates of the text in the Spanish Parliament, and was one of the key aspects in the head-on opposition to the Statute’s reform by the pp. This called for many speeches defending democratic legitimacy and constitutionality of the Statute’s linguistic provisions, the drafting of which suffered many changes of various degrees of significance during the proceedings. erc did not agree on the scope of these changes and finally voted against the text. The results of the 2006 popular referendum on the Autonomy Statute of Catalonia were clearly positive. The Constitutional Court will have to issue a statement about various aspects of the Statute’s linguistic regulation because of the appeals of unconstitutionality that have been filed ​
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