Salvador Illa: "I will always be in favor of any measure that promotes Catalan, Galician, or Basque."

The President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Salvador Illa, defends the measure, which will affect service providers and companies with more than 250 employees or a turnover of more than 50 million euros, whether headquartered in Catalonia or abroad.

The President of Catalonia, Salvador Illa , today expressed his support for promoting measures such as one that will require companies to serve their customers in Catalan, whether their headquarters are located within or outside the autonomous community.

This measure, which will be processed as an additional provision in the processing of the bill regulating customer service that the Council of Ministers sent to Parliament at the beginning of 2024 , will affect service providers and companies with more than 250 employees or with a turnover of more than 50 million euros, whether they are based in Catalonia or outside of it, as Expansión reported yesterday .

The amendment, announced yesterday by Junts, replaces the obligation to respond, at a minimum, in Spanish with the obligation to do so in the official or co-official language in which the client has contacted.

Illa, who today gave an interview to the Onda Cero program Más de uno during his visit to Madrid to attend the institutional event for the Diada, which will be held at the Government delegation, expressed his agreement with the measure. " I will always be in favor of any measure that promotes Catalan, Galician, or Basque ," he stated when asked about it.

"Any initiative of this kind tends to be viewed with suspicion or as a barrier, but I maintain that co-official languages ​​are a common asset for all Spaniards ," he argued, and " I will defend any measure that serves to protect these languages, just like Spanish, all the co-official languages ."

" Let's view Catalan as a shared treasure, not just with suspicion, " Illa emphasized, defending the idea that co-official languages ​​are a vehicle for understanding the cultures that make up the country. "That's what we are, and by doing so, we've made economic progress for many years. Let's view it this way, as an invitation to learn about the different cultures that coexist in Spain ," he concluded.

In his speech, the president defended any political initiative for the sake of coexistence within a common legal framework, and in this regard, he referred to the meeting he held on September 2 with Puigdemont , which he framed within the framework of the regional government's set of decisions that will serve to restore coexistence "after some very turbulent years." I am committed to "generosity" to put the "squabble" in Catalonia behind us , without seeking "winners or losers": "I will not be stuck in 2017," he stated.

"I want coexistence to be fully practiced in Catalonia," now that the Constitutional Court has upheld the constitutionality of the amnesty law. "Catalonia is doing well," he argued, before noting that things have "improved a lot" since 2017.

Illa emphasized that this regulation has already been proven to be "positive" and was made possible thanks to political "courage." He hopes it will be implemented "swiftly" and maintained that the Supreme Court's interpretation of embezzlement is "forced."

He emphasized that he spoke with Puigdemont, whom he did not know personally, in his capacity as president and not as an "intermediary" for Pedro Sánchez's government. No new agreements were reached during the meeting, and the two sides confirmed their "very distant positions," he added.

The president has said he wants the situation in Catalonia to be "fixed," given that Puigdemont now "cannot return"—he has been away from Catalonia and Spain for eight years, he noted—despite being a member of parliament, and the president of the ERC (Republican Left), Oriol Junqueras, remains barred from holding public office.

Illa also expressed his "appreciation" for his predecessor in the position, Pere Aragonès, who announced yesterday that he would be giving up his former president's salary to run the hotel chain founded by his father : "I wish him all the luck in the world."