Catalonia High Court Orders Immediate Enforcement of Ruling Against School Language Decree

Catalonia's High Court of Justice ordered the provisional enforcement of a ruling that partially annulled the regional government's 2024 decree protecting Catalan as the primary vehicular language in public schools, triggering a new political dispute that threatens the fragile parliamentary balance supporting President Salvador Illa's administration. The TSJC issued the order on March 30, 2026, partially upholding an appeal by the Assembly for a Bilingual School, and declared provisionally null and void the provisions of the educational language decree that the government of Pere Aragonès had approved. The court's decision means that, while the Supreme Court resolves pending cassation appeals, 11 (articles) — articles of the 2024 language decree declared provisionally null of the decree remain without application. The annulled provisions include those establishing Catalan as the sole vehicular and learning language, as the habitual language in dealings with families, and those governing the use of Catalan as the welcoming language for newly arrived pupils from abroad.

Illa pledges all resources, but faces ERC dilemma Salvador Illa, president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, moved quickly to reaffirm his government's position, sending a video statement to media outlets in which he declared the administration's commitment to the defense of Catalan and the Catalan school model. The vice first secretary and spokesperson for the PSC, Lluïsa Moret, stated that Illa would deploy every available instrument to defend the language model. „will make available all the political and legal resources that are necessary to defend Catalan and the Catalan school model” — Lluïsa Moret via Europa Press Albert Dalmau, the minister of the Presidency who is acting as head of Education while Esther Niubó remains on medical leave, told journalists in Badia del Vallès that the Catalan school model is "endorsed" and that the government "has defended, defends and will defend" it. The Department of Education sought to minimize alarm, stating that the TSJC decision "does not alter the ordinary activity of educational centers" because the language-regime decree had already been provisionally suspended since July 2024 and had not been applied during the current school year. The political difficulty for Illa, however, runs deeper than the legal question: he had committed to the pro-independence party ERC, as part of his investiture agreement, to keep the linguistic immersion system intact, and he now needs ERC's parliamentary support to pass the 2026 regional budget, expected to come to a vote in July.

Independence parties demand defiance, raising disobedience question Pro-independence parties Junts and ERC responded to the ruling with demands for a firmer, more confrontational stance from the Generalitat. ERC spokesperson Isaac Albert called on the government to be "brave" and guarantee Catalan as a vehicular language, framing the issue as one of maintaining "technical and pedagogical criteria" — a formulation that, in practice, would amount to defying the court order. „Who defines the language model of the school is the Government and the Parliament. There is an Education Law approved and in force. We ask the Government to be brave and guarantee Catalan as a vehicular language” — Isaac Albert via El Confidencial Junts went further, demanding that Illa himself appear before the Catalan Parliament to explain the government's response, and called for the appearance of both Albert Dalmau and Language Policy Minister Francesc Xavier Vila. Mònica Sales, president of the Junts parliamentary group, accused Illa of being complicit in what she described as a "constant attack on Catalan" and charged his cabinet with a "lack of commitment." The ruling thus places Illa in a bind: resisting the court would satisfy independence parties but risk a constitutional confrontation, while compliance risks alienating the ERC support his minority government depends upon.

The dispute over the vehicular language of Catalan schools has been contested in courts for years. The TSJC's Section 5 of the Administrative Litigation Chamber had already issued a ruling on September 8, 2025, partially annulling the 2024 decree, which itself had been approved with broad parliamentary support from PSC, Junts, ERC and Comuns. The 2024 decree was a successor attempt to shield Catalan immersion after earlier regulatory efforts had also been challenged judicially, including by the State Attorney's Office under central government administrations. The decree had been provisionally suspended since July 2024, meaning it had not been in force during the current academic year. A survey by the CEO, the Catalan public opinion institute, found that 76% of Catalans support the linguistic immersion model in schools regardless of the language they usually speak.

Teachers' unions and educators call for legislative shield The ruling drew immediate reactions from education sector organizations. The CC.OO. Education Federation of Catalonia rejected the decision, describing it as "a new attack on the Catalan school model" and calling for an end to what it characterized as the judicialization of educational policy. The platform of Catalan Language and Literature teachers DocentsCAT called on the Catalan Parliament to promote a new law to shield Catalan in schools, arguing that "Spanish is not a language in danger neither in Catalunya nor in education, Catalan is." DocentsCAT also criticized the AEB, accusing it of not defending bilingualism but rather "the imposition of Spanish and the dismantling of linguistic immersion." Francesc Xavier Vila, the minister of Language Policy, said in an interview on broadcaster 3CatInfo that the ruling's impact was "fairly limited" since the affected articles were already suspended, and confirmed that the government would appeal the decision. Vila also noted that the percentage of Catalan judges is small, suggesting this may distort judicial perspectives on the language, and called for unity across political forces. „Language should not be played with in a partisan way because it is an element that must unite us all above party ideologies” — Francesc Xavier Vila via Europa Press The minister added that a final ruling by the Constitutional Court, which still has to decide on a question of unconstitutionality raised by the TSJC itself, would be the definitive word on the matter — a decision whose outcome Vila declined to speculate about publicly.