Mataró City Council has approved a resolution to assess, support and monitor the use of Catalan in the city’s commercial sector. The proposal, put forward by the Junts per Mataró municipal group, won support from PSC, En Comú Podem, ERC, Junts per Mataró and CUP, while Vox and PP voted against it.
Officials said Catalan is Catalonia’s own language and a key part of social cohesion, shared identity and citizens’ linguistic rights. They added that the decline in everyday use in Mataró needs specific, measurable and sustained public policy, especially in places where language is most present, or can disappear most easily.
The move follows the creation of the Catalan Department, approved by the Mataró municipal plenary on the basis of a resolution from ERC, Junts per Mataró and CUP. That department is meant to promote and guarantee the social use of Catalan, draw up a municipal plan to boost the language, and create a local board with community, education, culture, sport and economic groups. It will also identify areas with weak language use and work to address them, alongside the Maresme Centre for Linguistic Normalisation and the Mataró Language Entities Board.
Local commerce is one of the areas the council sees as strategic. Shops, bars, restaurants, personal services, food outlets, markets, franchises and neighbourhood businesses are all places where people interact every day. The council says keeping Catalan present in these settings is not only symbolic, but also a matter of rights, service quality and urban cohesion.
Under Catalan linguistic and consumer rules, businesses open to the public have specific duties. Consumers have the right to speak and write in either official language, and certain commercial information, signage, fixed signs, price lists, menus, quotes, receipts, invoices and customer documents must be available in Catalan, at least where current law requires it. The council said effective language policy should start with diagnosis, information, advice and support, with inspection and sanctions used only if non-compliance continues.
The resolution also points to similar work in other Catalan towns. In Olot, a diagnosis of Catalan use in 660 establishments found 90.3% compliance at first, with 64 businesses showing some issues. After follow-up and tailored advice, compliance rose to 96.10%, and sanction procedures were only started against the 26 businesses that had not corrected the problems. Girona, Manresa, Cerdanyola del Vallès and Sant Cugat del Vallès have also taken steps on language compliance in commerce through advice, checks, training and prevention measures.
Junts per Mataró said the city now needs a specific programme to diagnose, support and monitor Catalan use in commerce, coordinated by the Catalan Department and the Commerce and City Promotion areas, with help from the CNL del Maresme, the Mataró Language Entities Board, commercial associations, guilds and local economic agents. More Catalonia news
