Teaching of co-official languages, digitalisation and greater international presence, challenges facing the Cervantes Institute

The Cervantes Institute closed the Annual Meeting of Directors which took place from Monday in San Sebastián with a commitment to promote the co-official languages of Spain, make progress in digitisation and work to extend its physical presence in new countries, according to the director of the Cervantes Institute at a press conference. 

Support for Basque, Galician and Catalan was one of the aspects most highlighted by Luis García Montero: "Our legal mandate includes the defence and dissemination of the languages of all the nationalities of the Spanish state", he reiterated, because "multiculturalism and bilingualism are a richness and a democratic asset" that must be preserved, as Europe has already done.

"Whoever says that Spanish is in danger is distorting reality", he pointed out, although some non-hegemonic languages are in this situation. A risk that does not affect Basque, which "is no longer a language in danger of extinction".

The Cervantes Institute will strengthen its commitment to teaching Basque, a language it has been teaching over the last few years in a total of eleven cities in nine countries: Germany (Munich and Berlin), Belgium (Brussels), Russia (Moscow), the United States (New York and Chicago), France (Bordeaux), Hungary (Budapest), Austria (Vienna), Japan (Tokyo) and Ireland (Dublin). He announced that he intends to sign a collaboration agreement, based on the one in force with the Etxepare Institute, to reinforce the teaching of Basque and even "manage to support courses that are not in the majority". "Whenever there is an interested party, we try to provide them with a response in their education", he pointed out. 

García Montero expressed his satisfaction at having held the Annual Meeting in San Sebastián, a city that "is a point of reference for culture", especially in the fields of film (with its renowned International Film Festival) and music (the Jazz Festival). A city "where different languages coexist, facilitate understanding and enrich us all".

Following the recent inauguration of the Cervantes Centre in Dakar (Senegal), the first to be held since 2012, the plans for territorial expansion will take shape in two strategic cities: Los Angeles (United States), where it already has a headquarters in Hollywood to set up, and Seoul (South Korea), whose small Aula Cervantes will become a centre.

Digital transformation is another fundamental challenge for Cervantes because "we have to move from urban culture to digital culture". Also, to consolidate itself as a reference point for Spanish and European democracy that transmits democratic values, solidarity in the face of inequality and poverty.

Finally, García Montero thanked the Basque Government, the Provincial Council of Guipúzcoa, Etxepare and the Government Delegation for their collaboration. The latter two also took part in the briefing.

The Government Delegate in the Basque Country expressed his gratitude for the choice of the city as the venue for the annual meeting, because it will enable Basque language and culture to become better known in the 47 countries where the Cervantes Institute is present. A choice that will project the image of Euskadi to the world, as well as demonstrating its interest in the co-official languages and its sensitivity to institutions such as Euskaltzaindia (the Academy of the Basque Language).

For Denis Itxaso, this choice (as was made in 2005 with the celebration in another bilingual region such as Galicia) demonstrates "the commitment to diversity, the defence of freedom and the commitment to cooperate and mutually enrich each other".

For her part, the director of the Etxepare Institute, Irene Larraza, praised the sensitivity of García Montero, with whom she has worked in close cooperation and whom she defined as "a poet in a Cervantes Institute director's suit". "We have many accomplices", she said, and one of them is the Cervantes Institute, which coincides with the Etxepare in striving for mutual understanding.

On this last day of the Annual Meeting, the presentations continued. The first was given by the digital expert Mario Tascón, followed by five others by directors of European centres (London, Bucharest, Berlin, Rabat and Paris), who presented projects related to quality certification and teaching skills, the various network programmes, and teaching and cultural activities for children.

Also presenting CANOA (the pan-Hispanic network for the internationalisation of culture in Spanish) were Philippe Robertet, Deputy Director of International Relations at the Cervantes Institute, and the heads of three important Spanish-American organisations in Spain: the Inca Garcilaso Cultural Centre (Peru, with Alonso Ruiz-Rosas), the Caro y Cuervo Institute (Colombia, with Martín Gómez) and the UNAM (Mexico, with Diego Celorio).

The annual Cervantes meeting closed with a session in the Town Hall, in whose Plenary Hall the Mayor of San Sebastian, Eneko Goia, and the Director and Secretary General of the Institute spoke.

Submitted by José Antonio Sierra, Hispanismo advisor.