The organization Elite Taxi has demanded from the government a new language policy for its sector in Catalonia, which has a large number of members who “are not even capable of understanding Catalan, nor of speaking it.” In a statement collected by ACN (Agència Catalana de Notícies), the entity has asked the government to include taxis in the future National Language Pact, including the obligation to demonstrate a B2 level of Catalan proficiency in order to practice.
“There are numerous indicators showing a negative trend in the use and knowledge of the language. As a society and as a country, we must have the capacity to update and modernize the tools that have brought us progress so far,” argues Elite Taxi, which has lamented that the sector has not been included in plans to promote the use of Catalan.
The organization points out that while in the immediate future public school teachers will need to have a C2 certificate and healthcare professionals a C1 to consolidate their positions in the Catalan Health Institute (ICS), the taxi industry has “a large portion of the sector that is not even capable of understanding Catalan, let alone speaking it.”
Currently, the language certification level required to obtain a taxi driver’s license is B1, a “basic level that does not correspond with the guarantee of linguistic rights for Catalan-speaking users who use taxis in our country,” according to Elite Taxi.
They also warn that the examination system, “with limited supervisory power, has been prone to fraud and certificate falsification.” Therefore, they demand that the certification level of the Catalan language be raised to B2, corresponding to an intermediate level to ensure the use of Catalan “in a wide range of communication situations.”