“When is the administration going to become unified?” asked the Council of Social Entities of the Basque Country, in its 2010 report it analysed the linguistic policies of the three Basque administrations. He asked “When?” because there is no general goal defined, because the Vice-Ministry of Linguistic Policy of the Basque Government (VPL) has not established how far it wants to go in Euskaldunization.

Five years of planning are carried out, the fifth until the end of 2017. At the middle and end of the planning period, the degree of achievement of the stated objectives is assessed. Several sectors of Basque cultural activity have pointed out on more than one occasion that this is not a means of measuring the Euskaldunization of the administration, which does not serve to stay in intermittent evaluations without establishing principal goals. According to these evaluations, the results are always positive, the administration is always more Euskaldun than in the previous two or three years, it has a large margin of Euskaldunization. The VPL says that the public administration must be used gradually, who say that its pace is too slow, do not refuse to go step-by-step, but do not think it makes sense not to know where the destination is. At the rate we are now going to, they would need a hundred years to be able to offer the service in Basque to all the citizens of the CAV.

Eight keys to preventing the Euskaldunisation of the Administration

There is more, of course, such a complex process cannot be summarized in eight photographs. The following lines have to do with the system of allocation and mandatory date of language profiles, one of the main bases for the Basque administration. The date of preceptivity indicates the date on which the linguistic profile should be credited, since it is not always mandatory for the worker to have the linguistic profile to access the job, can prove the level of Euskera he needs. The world of Basque culture has put criticism of this system on the table for years. The Vice-Ministry of Language Policy joins some of them, as we shall see later. Next, in eight photographs, we present the critical X-ray:

Sestao and Ondarroa neighbours do not have the same rights

In theory, but not in practice. For example, the neighbors of one town and another have the right to receive the service of the City Hall in Euskera, but that of Ondarroa, in proportion, has a greater chance of being attended in Euskera than that of Sestao. Why? Well, the number of places that have to prove the linguistic profiles is calculated according to the socio-linguistic data of the locality, that is, the number of people who know the Basque country plus almost half of the Basque population is taken into account. The more Euskaldun the people, the more administration workers will have some level of Euskera.

44% of places do not have a linguistic profile

All jobs have the language profile (1, 2, 3 or 4) that corresponds to them, but that does not mean that everyone needs a certificate. 56% of the staff must prove the linguistic profile corresponding to the date of the job or from the start of the job. If the worker does not reach the language level, he may be moved or changed, but he will not lose his job. When accreditation is not mandatory, it is meritorious to know Basque.

Household assistant linguistic profile 1?

The communicative functions of the job do not coincide with the level of Euskera required for it. For example, the janitor or helper has a linguistic profile 1. You may not need a higher level in writing, but it is known that you do not have the ability to speak in Basque with that profile. It is sometimes concluded that the job should have a better level of Euskera, and sometimes a lower level is sufficient.

The Basque workers are yes, but are they working in Euskera?

Many employees of the administration have become self-employed after getting a job. Hours and hours have passed in the Basque Country. The work of euskaldunizaring them has been assumed by the Administration (it is also a criticism: Why are people not directly recruited with a linguistic profile, rather than Euskaldunisation? ). The fact that the worker is Euskaldun does not guarantee that he works in Euskera. The workers have found work environments and work circuits in Spanish, in many cases in both oral and written form. The learned Basque has not been put into practice. This is one of Euskalgintza's most repeated questions: What is the use of Euskaldunizar for the workers if they are going to write and speak Spanish in the workplace?

Exempts over 45 years

The criterion is age. Those over the age of 45 do not need to prove any linguistic profile. If the post obtained by the worker over 45 years of age has expired the date of accreditation of the language profile, the language profile shall not be eligible for that post. If you do not have it and you are 45 years old until the date of accreditation, you will be exempt. As will be seen in the infographic on page 23, 7’8% of the jobs in which it is compulsory to certify a certain level of Euskera, i.e. 1,718 of the 23,439 jobs are exempt.

If the one who has a place has gone to another place?

Let us suppose that a job has a compulsory linguistic profile. This certificate is attested by the worker. It has, however, provisionally left its job. Therefore, the worker replacing him, as an alternate, will not have to prove the linguistic profile of the former colleague. The worker is entitled to the temporary suspension of the job, with the consequent violation of the rights of the citizen, since the new worker may be in Spanish.

The language of service is not the same as the working language.

It is one thing that the municipalities, the deputies, the Basque Government, the Basque Parliament … have the capacity to attend to the citizenship in Euskera, and another, that all these institutions work inside the house, in writing and in what language. There are still holes in the service language and more in the working language. Although equalization is not possible, an example is that the Administration has the capacity to respond in this way to 78.7% of the citizens who demand an oral relationship in Basque. Conversely, if the working meetings of the administrations' workplaces are taken into account, 51.3% of the meetings are in Basque.

And do political representatives not know Euskera?

Because it is not necessary for the political representatives to know the Basque. It depends on the will of the language. They have direct relations with public administrations, oral and written. If you don't know Euskera, relationships get very complicated in that language. In the article published in ARGIA on the linguistic competence of political representatives (No. 2.485. 29-11-2015), we talked about the linguistic capacity of parliamentary representatives from 2012 to 2016. Of the 75 parliamentarians, 25 did not know Basque and 11 did not know half.

What does the Vice-Ministry of Language Policy propose?

The VPL has proposed to unify and assess the criteria for the allocation of linguistic profiles and the reflection on the subject will take place in 2017 in HAKOBA (Basque Government, three foreign ministers, municipalities of the three capitals, EUDEL and UEMA). What does this mean? The VPL notes that, over the years, there have been dysfunctions or inconsistencies between the job and the established linguistic level. Different linguistic profiles can be found in jobs with similar communicative functions. To better understand the situation, we will use a couple of examples given by HPS Vice-Advisor Patxi Baztarrika: the university professor and the administrative assistant can find the linguistic profile 3 or in the same position three linguistic profiles (the relationship between the post and the linguistic profile is done by the administration itself). That is to say, a city council can assign a linguistic profile to a job and a city council adjacent to a job).

Public administrations’ jobs to reorganise awards have been grouped into 42 groups according to their main communicative functions (11 administrations have been analysed: CAV General Administration, municipalities, deputies, UPV/EHU, Basque Parliament and Ararteko). Based on these communication functions, the VPL has made a proposal. Depending on this proposal, the minimum language proficiency required for the performance or performance of a job of the Administration will be the same as that recognized for the performance of the required academic training for that job, in whole or in large part, in Basque. In other words, the citizen who studied law in Basque Country C1 (3. If HE level is recognised) he would be required to have a C1 level in the administration. This would be the main criterion, since depending on the communicative functions of the workplace you can also be required to have a linguistic profile 4, for example, if this worker is a lawyer for judicial proceedings, he or she should have more oral and written skills.

More practical than a higher degree

In the list of objections we have mentioned that it has often been said that those who have the Euskera title do not mean that they have the ability to use the Euskera in their work place, and even less if they do not have the possibility to be trained in the work centre, because the work is done in Spanish. The VPL proposal recognizes that the ability to work in Basque is not always resolved at the request of a higher profile. That is, switching 3.aren to 4 is not always the solution. What is the VPL proposal? Influence language training, i.e. the specific training of staff for their tasks. The VPL considers that it is learned and learned using language.

The keeper must know, in writing, how many Euskera he has to know and how many orally:

What about the police, the monitors, the helpers? According to the VPL's reflection, for some jobs it may be an option to require some skills from a linguistic profile (the four skills are reading, writing, hearing and oral expression) and other skills from another linguistic profile. It sets the example of the dance teacher. Maybe, verbally 3. He needs PL and has enough in writing 2. PL As for the goalkeeper, it may be the second. The LP should be requested in the oral expression and in the written expression is sufficient 1. PL

The proposal for a debate is on the table by the Basque Government. The objective is to assess, unify and set criteria for the allocation of language profiles. The VPL considers that the allocation system is one of the most important bases for the administration’s Euskaldunisation. However, this review process will not reflect on other aspects to which reference has been made in this report, such as whether it is necessary to increase the number of jobs with a linguistic profile or not, i.e. whether linguistic profiles change according to sociolinguistic indexes. And we will not talk about people over the age of 45 who are exempt from proving the linguistic profile or political representatives who, without exception, do not need any accreditation from Euskera.