The Balearic Island's government has announced this week their adherence to the Protocol of Collaboration that was affirmed in Bilbao by the Galician, Basque and Catalan governments on March 16th, 2007. This agreement works to "encourage incentives for the linguistic politics of the territories mentioned and to work towards the normalization of the different official languages aside from Spanish." In the meantime, the Valencian Country is the only autonomous community with an official language besides Spanish that remains outside of the agreement.

According to the protocol, the autonomous governments exchange and work with joined shares of communication and information in the fields of terminology, and promote means of protection, the use of the languages, education and international dispersion.

The agreement concurs, according to the the information gathered in 2002 on the Spanish government's implementation of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) that there are "great deficiencies found in law and state administrations in respect to the official languages other than Spanish."

Further Information:

• Press release: Les Illes Balears s'adhereixen al protocol subscrit entre els governs basc, gallec i català per impulsar les llengües pròpies (includes extract of the agreement).
• Direcció General de Política Lingüística del Govern de les Illes Balears