Isabel Díaz Ayuso, leading politician of the Spanish far-right party Partido Popular (PP) and president of the regional government of the Autonomous Community of Madrid since 2019, is known for advocating right-wing positions and for promoting a coalition of her party with Vox, which in parts openly holds neo-fascist positions.
She made the following statement on Spanish television: «I have no problem making a pact with Vox. If they call you a fascist? Then you are on the right side of history.»
https://www.telepolis.de/features/Konservative-Korruption-und-Rechtsdrall-5995220.html?seite=2
It is noteworthy that, for example, the German parties CDU and CSU, within the EPP (European People's Party) led by Manfred Weber in the European Parliament, cooperate with the Partido Popular, which is politically clearly far to the right of the German «Alternative for Germany» (AfD), instead of distancing themselves from such a party, which not only tolerates politicians like Isabel Díaz Ayuso — and she is by no means the only PP politician who holds extreme views that would probably lead to a storm of protest in all other countries of the European Union —in its ranks, but even brings her into government responsibility and leaves her there.
The former journalist, who is as opposed to feminism as she is to abortion, argues that there is no man-made climate crisis, but that the claim of drastic climate change is a scientifically unsubstantiated left-wing opinion piece. She says that no one in Madrid has died from pollution-related damage.
https://cadenaser.com/emisora/2019/12/31/radio_madrid/1577792627_743154.html
Now she is even preparing to publicly stir up opposition to human rights in Spain. The first and central human right of the two major human rights covenants of the United Nations, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, both of which have been ratified by Spain in a way that is binding under international law, have been integrated into its own legal system and stand as mandatory law above other legal norms in Spain's constitution, is the right of all peoples to self-determination:
«Article 1 (1): All peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of this right they freely determine their political status and freely shape their economic, social and cultural development.»
https://www.boe.es/buscar/doc.php?id=BOE-A-1977-10733
Catalans are undeniably a distinct people, however contested the definition of «people» may be legally.
This central human right is considered by the United Nations to be the basis of other collective and invididual human rights that build on it and derive in part from it. It is the fundamental justification of the principle of democracy and applies to all peoples of the world on all continents and all islands without exception. Every public official in Spain is obliged to recognise this human right; no Spanish public official may ever undermine or negate it.
Human rights are civil, political, economic, social and cultural. By their very nature, they are universal, inalienable and indivisible. Neither may individual people or peoples be denied human rights, nor may a state restrict them through its constitution if, as in the case of Spain, it has submitted to them without reservations in a binding manner under international law.
Any Spanish politician who claims that the Catalan people are not entitled to the human right to self-determination is speaking out against the first and fundamental human right in the human rights catalogue of the two major human rights covenants of the United Nations and is demonstrating an anti-rights and anti-democratic attitude that is contrary to Spain's legal order.
However, this does not affect Isabel Díaz Ayuso and her party Partido Popular. The «Societat Civil Catalana», which is small in terms of membership but pointedly right-wing extremist and in parts fascist in its ideas, and which democratic politicians with decency and a sense of honour should do their best to avoid, has invited right-wing extremists from all over Spain to a demonstration against the right to self-determination in Barcelona on 8 October 2023. Isabel Díaz Ayuso supports this demonstration, at which one will again see Hitler salutes and hear fascist songs like «Cara al sol», against the fundamental first human right and Isabel Díaz Ayuso has even announced to participate in it!
https://www.elmundo.es/cataluna/2023/09/12/65003d43fdddff58918b45a4.html
In a mature democracy, a politician who takes part in a demonstration against human and fundamental rights would have to resign from all offices immediately. Not so in post-fascist Spain, which has never broken with its fascist past, but continues to maintain institutions in line with fascist tradition, such as the Audiencia Nacional in Madrid or the Guardia Civil, which was restructured under the dictator and mass murderer Francisco Franco along the lines of the German SS and whose motto is «Honour is my motto». Spain is not a flawless democracy, and when it comes to Catalans or Basques, it is not a constitutional state either. Only recently, a former PSOE minister admitted that contract killings of Basques had been ordered by the state and that the GAL gang of murderers was in close contact with the Spanish government of the time.
https://www.eldiario.es/euskadi/ordene-liberar-segundo-marey_1_9721163.html
In the anti-human rights environment of the Partido Popular, it goes without saying that they want to continue to suppress and keep down nine of Spain's ten languages, first and foremost Catalan, the second largest language of the Spanish multi-ethnic state, in which Castilian (="Spanish"), Catalan, Galician, Basque, Occitan, Asturian, Aragonese, Portuguese, Arabic and Tamaziɣt are spoken as historically rooted languages.
That just in these weeks the Junts party of the legitimate Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, whom the Spanish government overthrew and expelled from office in October 2017 in breach of its own constitutional law and whom it continues to defame and persecute for political reasons by abusing seemingly constitutional procedures, is forcing the social democratic party PSOE and its government, to allow the use of Catalan and also other Spanish languages in the Spanish parliament — in itself a normality, but for a long time unthinkable in Catalanophobic Spain — and to apply in the name of Spain to make Catalan one of the official languages of the European Union, represents for all extreme right-wing politicians of the Partido Popular and Vox parties what they see as an unacceptable breach of taboo and a declaration of war on the fascist ideal of a single state language, namely Spanish.
In the first attempt on 19 September 2023, Spain failed to prevail despite its current presidency. The vote on Spain's request to make three more of its languages, besides Catalan also Basque and Galician, official languages of the European Union was postponed. The Finnish minister Anders Adlercreutz even justified the postponement in Catalan in front of running cameras.
https://www.ft.com/content/584a99e8-13d5-4665-9480-3565b4c400b7
https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/brussels-playbook/banking-cop-candidate-faces-parliament/
https://taz.de/Antrag-auf-neue-Amtssprachen-in-der-EU/!5961411/
Now the Spanish government is making a second attempt and is first trying to make Catalan an official language of Europe. Political survival for the prime minister and his government depends on this, as their re-election will only be possible with the votes of Carles Puigdemont's party. In the event of new elections, the Social Democrats would probably lose votes, while the right-wing parties would gain in the electoral favour of many Spanish regions. In a speech that received much attention worldwide, Carles Puigdemont announced that he would remain firm and only accept facts. The Catalans have already been betrayed by Spain too often.
The European Union would also do well to finally recognise one of the larger European languages, spoken by more than ten million people, as an official language and to stop treating the many Catalan-speaking Europeans as second-class EU citizens in linguistic terms. If the European Union ultimately rejects Spain's application, it would lose credibility domestically and worldwide and alienate millions of people in the Catalan countries (Northern Catalonia, Andorra, the Balearic Islands, Catalonia, the country of València and Alguer). The representatives of the states that will soon decide on Spain's application should think twice about this. They would do very great damage to the European Union if they were not to comply with Spain's and Catalonia's justified request.
Representatives of the Partido Popular and the Vox party are probably already in the process of winning over both Spanish constitutional judges and representatives of European states to help them continue the linguistic repression of the Catalan people. Do people everywhere in Europe know how many centuries the Catalan people have been persecuted and oppressed by Spain without their will and desire for freedom being broken? Europe must not make common cause with politicians of the calibre of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, but must raise the flag of human rights. It should comply with Spain's request and elevate the Catalan language, which is spoken by more people than Swedish, for example, to the rank of an official European language. It is time to dismantle historical injustices and stand up for the collective human rights due to the Catalan people — including the Catalan people's right to self-determination. Those who do so will one day be able to boast that they have stood on the right side of history. Those who prefer to make common cause with the spiritual successors of the Spanish fascists destroy the foundations on which the European Union is built.
May Europe remember its humanist tradition and human rights and make a wise decision regarding the Kingdom of Spain's new application to make Catalan an official language of the European Union! Not only the citizens of Europe, the whole world is watching this time! Videant ministri, ne quid Unio Europaea detrimenti capiat!