The Catalan Summer University (UCE), which celebrates a week of cycles and conferences every summer around the Catalan language and culture, and in which prominent members of Catalan politics participate, has closed its 58th edition with criticism from its organizers towards the Government of Salvador Illa, whom they accuse of “mistreating” these sessions. The UCE has been held every year in Prada, in the south of France, since these university sessions began to be organized in 1968. This year’s edition has been marked by doubts until the last moment about the possibility of holding them and about their continuity, due to the delay in subsidies from the Government.
“I’m sorry to say it but never before has the UCE been so mistreated by a Generalitat Government, neither by the right-wing nor by the left-wing,” said the president of the UCE Foundation, Joan Domènec Ros, before the Minister of Language Policy of the Generalitat, Francesc Xavier Vila, who attended the closing. In mid-July, the president of the UCE, Jordi Casassas, had already warned that they were preparing the 58th edition with uncertainty about funding, since the contribution from the Ministry of Research and Universities of the Generalitat of Catalonia for this year had not been “specified.” He also warned that the payment of the 20% corresponding to the previous year’s budget was still pending and lamented that the Regional Council of Occitanie had reduced its contribution by more than half.
The minister argued that the delay in the payment of the subsidy is due to a “strictly administrative matter.” Before the media, he stated that the payment “is being finalized,” and guaranteed the Government’s support for the project. “It is a project that has a future, which, like any project, must adapt to the times. There are conversations and, therefore, we understand that it will move forward with the Government’s support,” Vila emphasized.
Vila defended that the UCE plays an important role at a time when the academic world “suffers disorientation with unscientific dogmas,” and stressed that for this reason the sessions, which are held “beyond the administrative borders” of France and Spain, are a fundamental space for meeting and reflection.
The president of the Lleida Provincial Council, Joan Talarn, announced that they will double the aid that this administration gives to the UCE. At the closing of the edition, the Canigó Awards 2026 were given to La Bressola and the newspaper El Punt Avui.
Read more Six months without El Mencho in Mexico