The Minister of Tourism, Jaume Bauza, arrested the separatists of the Balearic Cultural Work and made it clear to Parliament that The government will not allocate ecotax money to promote Catalanas demanded by the OCB a few days ago.
The socialist deputy Alex Pitaluga supported the claim of the Catalan entity and questioned Bauzá on this issue during the plenary session held this Tuesday. The councilor declared that the Sustainable Tourism Tax (ITS) “is not intended to promote Catalan”. “Just hear that they want tourists to come with a B2 certificate Catalan,” he quips.
Bauzá insisted that “the promotion of the Catalan language is not part of the objectives of the ITS” approved by the left and that there is other aid planned in this area. However, he stressed that this government “has the greatest respect for the language and culture of the Balearic Islands.”
Pitaluga recalled that the OCB demands that the Regional Executive devote 5% of the ecotax to financing projects to promote Catalan, accusing tourism of being responsible for the decline in the social use of the Catalan language in the islands. , despite eight years of immersion in all areas, under the socialist government Francine Armengol.
This multi-subsidized entity of the public administrations of the Balearic Islands and Catalonia, which supported the coup d’état against the Constitution of the Generalitat in 2017, has again escaped Carles Puigdemont and what is it twinned with Òmnium Culturalpresented ten days ago a document of 50 measures at the table of the Social and Political Pact for the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the Balearic Islands, launched by the government of Marga Prohens.
A report in which the OCB specifies that Catalan comes first and that “the pressure from mass tourism and the direct consequences that result from it have seriously affected the vitality of the Catalan language in the Balearic Islands.
Curiously, the first of the measures proposed by the OCB is to have access to more public money. In this sense, they request that 5% of the ecotax be allocated to the financing of projects specifically linked to the promotion of Catalan and They join the commission that distributes funds for this tax.
He also wants an urgent action plan to be launched in areas where tourist pressure is strongest, “where Catalan has a residual presence”, (such as Calvià, Palma or Ibiza), with the aim of revitalize the language from a global intervention to reverse the effects of “the changes that have occurred due to the tourist model from which these areas have suffered” in a more accentuated way.
The entity also urges the various public administrations to make Catalan known by carrying out permanent dissemination campaigns at points of entry to the Balearic Islands (ports and airports), in public transport, tourist establishments, cultural facilities, areas with high tourist numbers, through explanatory panels. , distribution of published documents, audio guides, etc.
