everyone wants to send in Spanish

The Royal Spanish Academy is going through its worst institutional crisis in decades. On January 11, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, academic since 2003, published in El Mundo a column that several members have called “the most serious attack in living memory.” The novelist accused the institution of capitulating to media pressures and of practicing a “lax and ambiguous” linguistic policy, pointing directly to director Santiago Muñoz Machado. But this episode is only the most visible manifestation of a deeper conflict that shakes the foundations of the tricentennial institution.

The trigger. On Sunday, January 11, Arturo Pérez-Reverte published in El Mundo a column titled ‘Why it neither fixes, nor cleans, nor gives splendor’ that caused the crisis. In the text, the academic denounced that the RAE practices “lax and ambiguous” regulations and accused the institution of having surrendered to what he called “the Taliban of anything goes.” Among their criticisms were the lack of forcefulness in debates such as inclusive language, the accentuation of “only” or “hyphen”, and the use of capital letters. According to Pérez-Reverte, the Academy limits itself to registering uses driven by social networks or political correctness, abandoning its regulatory function. “Any bold cathet can prevail, if he perseveres, over Cervantes, Galdós or García Márquez,” he wrote.

The momentum. The moment chosen for the publication aggravated the unrest: the tribune appeared on the eve of the delivery of the Zenda Awardsliterary awards founded by Pérez-Reverte himself. The ceremony, held on January 13 in the presence of Queen Letizia, brought together numerous academics who had confirmed their attendance and found themselves caught at the heart of the controversy. Muñoz Machado, in fact, did not attend.

The plenary session on Thursday, January 16, confirmed the fracture. Pérez-Reverte attended and presented his arguments in a synthetic way, but several academics intervened to show their “rejection” of a member expressing himself in that way in the media. Some reproached him for his “ignorance” of the daily work of the institution, while others defended the work of the current director. The session was left unfinished due to lack of time and The debate will continue next week.

A crisis. The Pérez-Reverte controversy shows structural tensions accumulated over decades in the RAE. The institution maintains a composition that several academics describe as “unofficial three thirds“: literary creators, philologists and a heterogeneous group of jurists, doctors or scientists. This cast, considered for years a sign of plurality, is now questioned both from inside and outside the Academy.

The directors. The last director who was primarily a writer, Damaso Alonsotook office in 1968 and remained until 1982. Since then, the management has been in the hands of philologists: Fernando Lázaro Carreter (1991-1998), Víctor García de la Concha (1998-2010), José Manuel Blecua (2010-2014) and Darío Villanueva (2014-2018). Santiago Muñoz Machado, a jurist specialized in Administrative Law, broke this sequence of four decades in 2018. His management rescued the institution from a financial crisis caused by Mariano Rajoy’s government cuts.

Versus. Several internal voices reject Pérez-Reverte’s diagnosis. “Here there is no war between writers and philologists. What there is are personal philias and phobias,” say academics consulted by El País. Others defend the institutional functioning: the RAE operates as a “confederal regime” together with the 23 American academies, plus the Philippines and Equatorial Guinea. No word enters the dictionary without going through delegated commissions, pan-Hispanic consultation and, only in case of discrepancy, full debate. But the schedule adds pressure. In December 2026, the next director must be elected. Muñoz Machado could run, but he needs two-thirds of the votes for a second consecutive term, a majority that today seems out of reach.

The Cervantes front. The RAE crisis is not limited to the internal clash. Since October 2025, the institution has had an open war with the Cervantes Institute that has led to an institutional breakup. On October 9, five days before the 10th International Congress of the Spanish Language (CILE) in Arequipa, Luis García Montero, director of Cervantes, publicly attacked Muñoz Machadosaying that the RAE is in the hands of “a professor of Administrative Law who is an expert in running businesses from his office for multi-million dollar companies”, regretting the distance with the current director.

Immediate reaction. That same day, the plenary session of the RAE unanimously expressed its “absolute rejection” of what it described as “incomprehensible demonstrations”, stressing that they were “especially regrettable” for occurring on the eve of an event organized by both institutions. The conflict It was reactivated in December with the controversy over Panama as the venue for CILE 2028, or in the annual meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Cervantes Institute, chaired by the kings.

Money. The budgetary context adds another dimension: the Cervantes Institute manages 143 million euros annually compared to 11 million for the RAE. This disproportion of resources, added to Cervantes’ dependence on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (a circumstance that Pérez-Reverte has denounced as an attempt at “colonization”), transforms what began as a personal disagreement into a conflict over who leads Spanish linguistic policy abroad.

Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Image from Canal Sur Media on Flickr

History of controversies. The current crisis is not the first. The RAE has a history of controversies that mark its relationship with political power and social changes. The most critical moment came with the cuts by Mariano Rajoy’s government in 2012-2013, which They reduced spending on culture by 30%. Santiago Muñoz Machado dedicated his early years to economic recovery seeking private patronage, a task that earned him recognition but also fueled later criticism of his business profile.

Cultural battles. Beyond the budget, the RAE has been at the center of recurring cultural battles. The inclusive language made it a target for progressive sectors, who interpret its technical position (the generic masculine is grammatically inclusive) as resistance to social change. Other controversies were more specialized but equally divisive: removing the accent of “only” and “script” caused rejection even among academics. The admission of foreign words in the face of the defense of purism generates constant tensions. And the balance between prescribing standards or recording actual uses is an unresolved debate.

The paradox: while the RAE has been criticized from the left for linguistic conservatism, Pérez-Reverte now attacks it from purism for the opposite. He accuses it of being permissive, of recording what the networks impose instead of defending clear rules. The institution is caught between two fires: those who accuse it of being obsolete and those who accuse it of capitulating to political correctness.

In Xataka | The Spanish language is in free fall in the US despite the increase in Latin immigration