The sign on the top right of the site is actually correct! Catalunya is not Spain - It is IN SPAIN! ;-)

Personally I believe it is an academic discussion, not a political one...

In today's international village it is simply fatalistic to try force a language on people. There was actually a law that all signs, forms, etc had to be bi-lingual. They all used to be a few years ago but recently the nationalistic Catalan government has flouted this and pushed on with its own social engineering and empire building exercise. It is all good and well saying that they were an independent Republic 200 years ago, etc. but half of France was also a part of England a few hundred years ago too! Where do you draw the line? You cannot live in the past.

Making it the first language in schools was simply narrow minded. Now they have kids who speak Catalan and parents who have to take Catalan lessons to talk to them and grandparents who speak only Castillian! Ironically, however, it has become "cool" amongst catalan kids to speak Castellano (due to all the spanish / latin amercan pop stars).

So when a Catalan kid becomes a brilliant doctor, where else is he/she going to practice? Andorra? Or is that just a very clever ploy to prevent a brain drain from Catalunya?
Putting an extra language on kids to learn is already showing its toll - Catalunya has one of the worst ESO (GCSE equivalent) attainment records in Spain, never mind Baccalaureate (A level).

I appreciate the pendelum needs to swing as they come out from under the shadow of the Franco era, but has anyone done the math. Can Catalunya sustain itself as a nation? They would struggle to even assemble a half decent national football team, never mind be part of a historic win like last week's Euro final.

It is certainly their choice though. Big fish little pond or little fish big pond??? But what happens when the little pond dries up??? They have to ask the fish in the big pond for some water? That's exactly what happened two months ago!

All I know is that it has made the job of settling here that much harder and I am seriously looking to move just a little further south... I wonder how many other people decide that it is just not worth the extra hassle before even coming over...? There could be a reason why property is relatively cheaper here...

The bottom line is simple: tourism is the life blood of the region and Catalunya must become more user friendly!