ELEN Statement
ELEN expresses its profound disagreement with today’s incoherent decision by the European Court of Human Rights concerning the Turó del Drac de Canet school case, Catalan-medium education and the enforcement of 25% Spanish as a teaching requirement.
ELEN also fully supports our member organization Òmnium Cultural who have been co-ordinating the families legal action.
While the decision is that the case in question is not admissible and is not a legally binding judgement, we consider this decision to be a serious misunderstanding of Catalonia’s long-standing educational model, which has played a fundamental role in promoting social cohesion, equal opportunities, and linguistic integration across generations of students. The Catalan immersion system has been widely recognized for ensuring proficiency in both Catalan and Spanish while fostering an inclusive learning environment for all pupils, regardless of their linguistic background. Moreover, the Catalan model has huge public support. None of these factors are mentioned at all in the text published by the court.
This decision also risks being used by organisations and political parties determined to undermine a model that has contributed significantly to social harmony and to the preservation of Catalan as a living and fully functional language in education, culture, and public life. At a time when Europe’s linguistic diversity needs to be protected and promoted, we believe this decision sends a troubling message regarding all European endangered and minoritized languages.
The decision underlines yet again the urgent need for substantive EU legislation that guarantees minoritized language rights and that underpins minoritized language immersion education and the need to establish a new EU Strategic Framework for endangered and minoritised languages that will be empowered to initiate such legislation.
The decision also undermines the credibility of the court as a place where minoritised language speakers can seek justice.
We reaffirm our commitment to defending the Catalan model as a legitimate, effective, educational framework that has huge public support and will continue to work with educational institutions, civil society, and public authorities to safeguard Catalan linguistic rights for everyone in Catalonia.