The right wing is carrying out its offensive against Catalan in the Menorca Council

CitadelThe right wing has camped out at the headquarters in Maó's Biosphere Square and turned Menorca's main institution upside down. The far-right wing of the PP and the councilor expelled from Vox joined forces to achieve an arithmetic majority in the Consell and impose their policies. From the territorial model to the road model and, now, also to the identity model.

Without the support of the institution's Linguistic Advisory Service (SAL) or its main consultative and academic body, the Menorcan Institute of Studies (IME), the history professor and graduate whom the PP snatched from the far-right party before the elections has brought, as before, the same message he already preached at the head of Sa Fundació and which he now imposes on the Consell so that they speak "as the people speak." It does so by eliminating the monitoring committee that until now had overseen the application of the institution's language regulations in a participatory manner, and by positioning itself as the sole supervisor of the regulations, thus opening the door to outsourcing linguistic advice when it is not in its interest to follow the SAL guidelines in defense of standard Catalan.

Intangible heritage

Joan Pons Torres took office determined to champion the island's linguistic diversity and have Menorcan declared an intangible cultural heritage. He had already attempted to take this step in October 2024. He submitted a proposed language regulation and a draft report, but it failed to gain traction. The councilor who held the balance of power, Maite de Medrano, was still a member of Vox, firmly committed to negotiating, and the minority government led by Adolfo Vilafranca lacked the will to bring the changes he truly sought to the plenary session: the continuation of the double-level bridges on the main road, which affect the Talayotic Menorcan heritage sites used in agriculture, and a commitment to Menorcan and genuine bilingualism within the institution. De Medrano's expulsion from Vox and the need to reach agreements with her on the most significant projects of the legislative term have finally allowed progress to be made in this direction.

First came Rafal Rubí's project, which maintains the two-level road solution despite warnings from ICOMOS and UNESCO, who are calling for its demolition to avoid jeopardizing the World Heritage Site designation. Then came the attempt to "substantially modify the fundamental objectives and principles of the Territorial Plan" regarding rural land, protected areas, tourist zones, and landscape preservation, but opposing reports from the technical staff and the Council's secretary prevented it. And now, the need to secure the seventh vote the People's Party (PP) requires to pass the budget has precipitated the third major step: the linguistic one.

Pons Torres has revived the initiative he had already championed a year ago and has fulfilled De Medrano's request: the amendment of the language regulations to guarantee "effective and real equality" between the two official languages in the Valencian Community. This has resulted in a linguistic overhaul that alters 18 of the 27 articles of the regulations, equates Spanish with Catalan in many cases within the Administration, and prioritizes the use of Menorcan over standard Catalan in personal and telephone interactions, magazines, reports, posters, advertisements, and notices. It also raises the possibility of using Spanish for signage "when the sociolinguistic context so advises" and stipulates that all regulations and resolutions must be published simultaneously in both languages, in addition to tender specifications and the website itself. The councilor intends for the island variety to be recognized as "a cultural asset and a source of unity, not discord."

The agreement, however, has had precisely the opposite effect. With the exception of Sa Fundació and the PP, all other voices—both public and internal—have rejected the new regulations, which are now open for public comment and will receive a flood of objections. The Fem-ho en Català platform has also rejected them, arguing that "language cannot be a political bargaining chip." The organization accuses the Consell government "of inventing a non-existent problem" of discrimination against Spanish and fears that concentrating oversight solely in the hands of the councilor "will lead to total opacity in decision-making. We are," they say, "facing a frontal and unacceptable attack against Catalan."

Island variety

Unfazed by the criticism, the councilor responded to the controversy by clarifying that the institution "will continue to use Catalan as its own language, but prioritizing the use of Menorcan, as dictated by the Statute of Autonomy, and without renouncing Spanish for those citizens who request it. The debate – he clarified – is not so much about whether we speak Catalan or not, or whether it's too late." He even accused those who opposed a measure favoring the island's dialect of being "radical." Councilor Maite de Medrano, who expedited its approval, says that the objective is not to guarantee the co-official status of Catalan and Spanish, "but of Menorcan and Spanish, the language spoken by 600 million people worldwide and which is as much or even more native to the people of Menorca. It's not the language of another community that has been imposed on us as if it were our own."

For De Medrano, "the Catalan Countries don't exist, and our language isn't Catalan." The independent councilor rejects "Catalan imperialism, which forces the entire administration to be in Catalan, and linguistic normalization, which is absurd and nonsensical, preventing true freedom of language choice." But it's the law, and "for now, we must accept it," although she warns: "This is only progress, not the end."

She doesn't even approve of the Ciutadella City Council, of which she is also a councilor, naming the public library after the writer, former councilor, and former member of parliament Joan Francesc López Casasnovas, a staunch defender of the Catalan language and literature. "I am convinced that the majority of citizens do not agree with this recognition," declared De Medrano, who then criticized Mayor Llorenç Ferrer, outraged by the "miserable and disgusting lack of respect shown by the councilor to a figure of paramount importance to Menorcan culture." "What they want is to use Menorcan as a weapon to dismantle linguistic normalization," concluded Noemí García, spokesperson for Més in the Consell. "I wouldn't need three gin and tonics to swallow it," she quipped. Socialist councilor Edu Robsy also had no doubts: "They are doing what even President Prohens herself never dared to do."