Andorra la VellaThe general councilor and leader of Concòrdia, Cerni Escalé, has expressed satisfaction with the own and official language bill, which will shield the use of Catalan in the administrative sphere and in public service at public companies and private He thanked all the groups that participated and that are part of the consensus to protect Catalan as the country’s heritage.
However, Escalé has referred to the five-year transitional stage that the law opens for current and future residents to adapt to the regulations, and that is the period it will take to reach absolutely all residence permits.
He believes that “it is understandable that a country that has a limited capacity to teach Catalan starts by teaching Catalan to those people who serve the public”. He assures that this is why his group asked, at the outset, to start with these people and then extend it to the rest of the permits.
Finally, this will not be the case and a transitional period of five years has been established, which although it is really short for Escalé, he admits that it will generate a situation of inequality that will be “very temporary”. “For us, it is a contradiction to ask a construction worker for a level of Catalan and not a content creator,” he exemplified during the intervention.
Despite this scenario, the Concordia councilor considers that “it can be remedied with the policies of the Government itself” and that in no way “obstructs our vision of this law” which is “excellent” and born from the “consensus of this chamber”.
