The Basque Government says that there is no "legal reason" to refer the issue of language profiles to the Constitution

The High Court of Justice of the Basque Country Euskal Public Employment Act  187.5, on linguistic profiles, refers to the Constitutional Court for consultation on legalityas "particularly serious" because there is no "legal reason" for it, as Ibone Bengoetxea eta Maria Ubarretxena , First Vice-President of the Basque Government and Counsellor for Culture and Linguistic Policy, and Spokesperson and Spokesperson and Self-Government, respectively.

Both leaders have expressed their "concern" and have said that what has been "called into question" is "the basic pillar of linguistic standardization inthe Basque Country, which is in force and guaranteed for more than 40 years. "Bengoetxea has stressed that bringing this issue to the Constitutional Court would mean" questioning the entire system of Euskaldunization of the public sector. "" This system has made it possible to move progressively and proportionally towards a truly bilingual service. "

Ubarretxena has pointed out that "there is no legal reason to raise this question of opposition to the Constitution ." He has stressed that the content now in question "is not new", since  already appears in the 1982 Law on the Standardization of the Use of the Euskera and in the 1989 Law on the Public Service, and "this whole framework was reviewed and endorsed by the Constitutional Court." Both councillors have insisted that "the protection of the Euskera is the objective of the Government."

The course of the affair

PP and Vox filed appeals in March against Decree 19/2024 on the use of the Basque language in the public sector, and since then, in the opinion of the Government, the High Court of Justice of the Basque Country has taken a number of decisions which are "questionable". "On 14 November, the two appeals were accumulated, although their content and scope are very different, and on the same day it opened proceedings for a constitutional dispute."

They stress that if Article 187.5 is declared unconstitutional, it may affect "other articles of the decree and elements of the system of linguistic profiles".  

The Government recalls that "neither the Basque Public Employment Act nor Decree 19/2024 are suspended and both remain in force and in full application".

Language profile and preceptivity

At its hearing, Bengoetxea has presented two "fundamental concepts of legal debate" to "avoid confusion": the language profile A and mandatory.

It specifies that the language profile is a feature of the  job "as are the level, qualification and functions". The Public Employment Act states that all jobs must be classified with a profile, but this does not automatically make that profile a requirement.

On the other hand, he adds, "the obligation to assign a date of preceptivity to that profile in a particular job makes that linguistic profile a requirement from the date specified." "As long as that date of preceptivity has not expired, the knowledge of the Basque Country cannot be required. And in all these cases, the knowledge of the Basque Country is considered to be a merit in access tests."