Concòrdia Urges Andorra to Curb Growth as Catalan Use Falls to 55.9%

Concòrdia has called on the government to rethink Andorra's demographic growth model and strengthen protection of Catalan, after a new language survey showed a sharp decline in habitual use of the official language.

The survey, published on Monday by the government and the research institute AR+I, found that the share of people who say Catalan is their usual language for relating to others fell 7.8 percentage points in four years, from 63.7% in 2022 to 55.9% in 2026. Spanish rose to 55%, putting the two languages at nearly the same level. The trend is repeated in other settings, including at home, with friends and at work.

Concòrdia highlighted that in customer-facing settings—restaurants, bars, large department stores and public transport—exclusive service in Spanish now exceeds exclusive service in Catalan. Compared with 2022, exclusive attention in Catalan has fallen in sectors including hospitality and public transport.

The party links the decline to population growth of 12% over four years, a rate of close to 3% a year that it describes as excessive and unsustainable for the country's social fabric. It argues that no society can sustain growth of that scale indefinitely without damaging social and linguistic cohesion, and says the pace of arrivals must be adapted to Andorra's capacity to host and integrate newcomers.

Concòrdia also wants the government to enforce the law on the official language. It noted that around 100 complaints over possible breaches of language regulations were filed in 2025, of which only two ended in a financial penalty. The party called for stronger control mechanisms and for the obligations set out in law to be made effective.

It further urged the expansion of free public Catalan courses for adults across all parishes, pointing out that some currently have no self-study language centres. And it asked the government to set out how it will implement its 2026-2028 national action plan for the language, with concrete targets and evaluation mechanisms.

The party recalled that in September 2025 it presented a bill to create a reception scheme to help newcomers adapt and to promote social cohesion and knowledge of Catalan, which received an unfavourable opinion from the executive. The government argued at the time that the initiative was unnecessary because existing legislation already provides for a social inclusion programme for immigrants.