On June 23, 2008 a group of Spanish intellectuals presented in Madrid a document that stresses the importance of the Spanish language in Spain “as a common language of our democratic process” that ought to have “an asymmetric position with respect to the other official languages of Spain, which have limited scope restricted to only the bilingual regions”. The signers ask the Spanish Parliament to guarantee “throughout the entire national territory” the rights of those who choose to express themselves in “the common language”.
The document, titled “Manifesto for Our Common Language”, is subscribed by a group of thinkers and intellectuals of different political ideologies: Mario Vargas Llosa, Fernando Savater, Álvaro Pombo, Carlos Martínez Gorriarán, Carmen Iglesias, Aurelio Arteta, Félix de Azúa, Albert Boadella, Carlos Castilla del Pino, Luis Alberto de Cuenca, Arcadi Espada, Alberto González Troyano, José Luis Pardo, Ramón Rodríguez, and José María Ruiz Soroa.
On June 25, 2008, the People's Party of Spain gave its support to the manifesto. Mariano Rajoy (President), María Dolores de Cospedal (Secretary-General), Ana Mato (Under-Secretary-General of Organization), Javier Arenas (Under-Secretary-General of Local and Regional Policies) and Esteban González Pons (Under-Secretary-General of Communications) all signed the document. Rajoy has stated in several occasions that his party will sponsor a bill to guarantee the right to use the Spanish language throughout Spain.
Several Spanish regions governed by the People's Party of Spain, such as Madrid and Murcia, have publicly expressed their support for the manifesto.
Read the complete text of the manifesto (in Spanish) here.
To show your support for the manifesto, you can sign it on any of several web pages available to do so:
