Plataforma per la Lengua has released a legal report with the participation of EU law professors from King's College London and the University of Birmingham

Academics Karen McAuliffe and Takis Tridimas have criticised the EU Council's restrictive position in 2004 on a request to grant Catalan semi-official status.

The report analyses the main points surrounding the legal issue and warns of the negative consequences of a hypothetical unfavourable response

The organisation will meet with the first of several embassies in Madrid tomorrow to present its report More info about "An international legal report confirms the legality of making Catalan official in the EU"

Òscar-Adrià Ibàñez, head of the International Affairs, and Language Rights and Public Authorities departments at Platform per la Llengua, asked the UN special rapporteur for Minorities, Nicolas Levrat, to intervene to guarantee the language rights of Catalan-speakers at health centres 

The organisation's representative pointed out that the use of Catalan with doctors has fallen in Catalonia from 47% to 39% in the last 15 years and that the health care system is the area where most language discrimination is recorded in Catalonia, the Valencian region and the Balearic Islands 

According to research published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), dealing with patients in their own language improves their medical prognosis   More info about "We ask the UN to work to protect health care patients' right to be dealt with in Catalan"

The organisation considers that Spain has the capacity to resolve the doubts of other States between now and the date of the next General Affairs Council, and has repeated that it holds the Spanish government responsible for the success or failure of the vote

The Catalan NGO positively values the "gradual deployment" system proposed today by the Spanish delegation if this makes it possible for the other States to agree

And the organisation recalls that Catalan is a language spoken by millions of Europeans that has enough professionals working with it so that the effects of official status can be rolled out quickly More info about "Plataforma per la Llengua considers it essential that the vote to decide whether Catalan becomes an official EU language is held on 24 October"

Organisations affiliated to Civil Pledge for Official Status for Catalan repeat that whether the language becomes official has real consequences in many areas of the country, and they call on the Spanish government to convince EU Member States to obtain the necessary unanimity

The organisations promoting the commitment, which have already signed the manifesto "Official Status, Now!" in February, call on more associations to support the text. They celebrate the fact that the Spanish government has been pushed into formally requesting official status, as they demanded in February

The organisations welcome the step taken by the Spanish government to propose amending Article 1 of Regulation 1/1958 to add Catalan to the list of the current 24 official languages, and warn that, given that the opportunity to achieve this now is unique, they will not settle for less More info about "Organisations promoting Catalan hold the Spanish government responsible for the official decision taken by the EU Council on 19 September"

Òscar-Adrià Ibàñez, head of language rights at the Catalan NGO, attends the 67^th Congress of the Federal Union of European National Communities (FUEN), one of the main organisations protecting minority nationalities and languages

The request of the FUEN Assembly of Delegates for Catalan speakers to be recognised as a linguistic minority in the Spanish State seeks to give the speakers more rights and greater international protection, and the inhabitants of the Franja de Ponent could particularly benefit from it More info about "The European FUEN network urges Spain to recognise and protect Catalan speakers as a language minority"

Plataforma per la Llengua is launching catalaoficial.eu to kick off an intensive campaign for Catalan to be made official during the Spanish presidency of the EU and, in particular, before the Council meetings on 19 September and 23 October, prior to Pedro Sánchez possibly being reinvested as Prime Minister

After getting the official status of Catalan on to the political agenda, and the Spanish government making the first request for Catalan to become an official and working language of the EU, the Catalan NGO is asking citizens to endorse the campaign with their signatures on the new website, while placing all the responsibility for achieving the goal on the Spanish government

Every day, the website "Catalan: the 25th official language of the EU" is publishing a disadvantage suffered by Catalan because it lacks official status. It also includes a section of frequently asked questions that clear up the main doubts about the issue and give information about the actions forming part of the campaign More info about "We are launching a website to press for Catalan to be made official in the EU as we begin an intensive three-month campaign on the issue"

The Catalan NGO is releasing a video summarising studies by two jurists specialising in the European language system to explain that there is no legal barrier that makes official status impossible

The organisation recalls that the Spanish government has never mounted a European court challenge to opinions claiming that any official language must also be included in the Treaties More info about "We launch a video in Catalan and English to demolish any legal excuses for refusing Catalan official status"

In the article, the president of Plataforma per la Llengua explains the launch of the organisation's campaign to promote Catalan 

Escuder stresses that official status is feasible as long as Spain works with a real will to achieve it, as it depends strictly on negotiations between the States  More info about "We launch the campaign for the officialisation of Catalan in the EU with an article in El Punt Avui newspaper headlined: ‘Estem a punt’ (We’re ready)"

The organisation celebrates the letter from Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares asking for the reform of Regulation No. 1 of 1958 but urges caution because of all the unknowns waiting to be resolved More info about "Plataforma per la Llengua urges the Spanish government to make public the memorandum it will present to the EU Council asking for Catalan to be made official"

The Catalan NGO makes a projection on the facade of Barcelona City Hall asking the mayor if he will request official status for Catalan in the EU, as he has said he would several times in his socialist party's election manifesto

The president of Plataforma per la Llengua sent a letter to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez last Wednesday calling on him, as president of the Council of the European Union until the end of the year, to ask that Catalan be added to its list of official languages More info about "We ask Mayor Collboni: “Will you ask the European Union to make Catalan official?”"