Parliament Board forces Culture Ministry to answer on Collboni's controversial scholarship

The governing body accepts Junts' appeal after Minister Hernández avoided evaluating the 80,000-euro grant.

Generic image of microphones in an institutional press room.
IA

Generic image of microphones in an institutional press room.

The Minister of Culture, Sònia Hernández, will have to submit a new written response to the Parliament of Catalonia regarding the controversial 80,000-euro literary scholarship promoted by the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni.

The decision follows the Parliament Board's acceptance of an appeal by the Junts per Catalunya group. The party claimed that the Minister failed to answer five specific questions about the grant for Latin American writers, which was announced during the Guadalajara International Book Fair in Mexico.
In her initial response, Hernández avoided taking a stance on whether the three-month writing residency in Barcelona undermined the Catalan language. Instead, she detailed existing programs, such as the 50 scholarships of 10,000 euros each granted by the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes (ILC) last year.
Despite opposition from the PSC within the Board, the Government now has fifteen days to provide a new response. The Ministry maintains its commitment to Catalan literature, noting that ILC grants will increase to 12,000 euros by 2026.