Some 24 former PSOE deputies, 3 former ministers and 2 former presidents of the Senate, against the co-official languages ​​in Congress

They ask Armengol, along with 37 former leaders of the PP, to withdraw the measure for "contradicting the Constitution" and being an "unacceptable swallow"

MADRID, 15 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Some 24 former PSOE parliamentarians, including three former ministers and two former presidents of the Senate - Juan José Laborda and Javier Rojo - have asked the president of Congress, Francina Armengol, to stop the initiative to speak the co-official languages ​​in the Congress. They have been joined by 37 former socialist, UCD and UPyD leaders. All of them consider that the measure "contradicts the Constitution, is not adapted to our linguistic reality" and is an "unacceptable tragedy."

Among the signatories of the text are three former socialist ministers - José Luis Corcuera, Virgilio Zapatero and Javier Sáez de Cosculluela -, as well as two former presidents of the Senate - Javier Rojo and Juan José Laborda -, the former president of the Junta de Andalucía, José Rodríguez de la Borbolla and the former mayor of La Coruña, Francisco Vázquez.

They are joined by, among others, Nicolás Redondo, who has just been expelled from the PSOE due to the criticism made against his party for the possible amnesty of those involved in the 'procés'; Joaquín Leguina, former president of the Community of Madrid and also expelled from the party; former MEPs Alejandro Cercas and Pedro Bofill; former deputies José María Mohedano, Ciriaco de Vicente and Jesús Cuadrado; the former general secretary of Madrid Tomás Gómez; the former deputy in the Basque Parliament José Antonio Maturana or the former head of International of the PSOE Elena Flores.

37 former leaders of the PP, UCD and UPyD have also signed the document, including former ministers Juan Carlos Aparicio, María Dolores de Cospedal, Rafael Catalá, Miguel Arias Cañete, Federico Trillo and Isabel Tocino; the former Secretaries of State Gabriel Elorriaga or Miguel Angel Cortés; the former general of the State, Arturo García Tizón; the former president of UPyD Rosa Díez or the former minister of UCD Jaime Lamo de Espinosa, among others.

The measure of speaking Catalan, Basque and Galician in the Chamber was a demand from the Catalan independentists to support the PSOE having the majority of the Congress Board and that the president of the Chamber be the socialist Francina Armengol. In the session of constitution of the Cortes, she announced that from that moment on the co-official languages ​​would be spoken in Parliament.

However, it is not a measure that has the consensus of the right, the reform of the Congressional Regulations has not yet been carried out and the lawyers of the Cortes have warned of the difficulty of carrying out the widespread use of languages co-officials in parliamentary debates and initiatives.

Precisely this Tuesday, the lawyers warned that it was "very difficult, if not impossible", to apply "immediately or in the short term" the reform of the Chamber Regulations registered by the PSOE, Sumar, ERC, Bildu, PNV and BNG. In fact, they pointed out that its implementation would force them to "rethink all parliamentary procedures" as they are currently conceived.

However, the day after this warning from the legal service of the Cortes, the Congress Board adopted an agreement, with the votes of the PSOE and Sumar and the opposition of the PP, so that the co-official languages ​​can be used in the hemicycle from the beginning. next Tuesday, even before the reform of the Congressional Regulations that was registered with this objective last week is approved.

This measure has sparked the rejection of former parliamentarians, former ministers and former leaders of the PP and the PSOE, who in a total of 61 have addressed the president of Congress and the deputies of the XV Legislature to express their rejection. In the text they make it clear that Spanish is the "official language of the State" with which the mission of parliamentarians has been debated, dialogued and fulfilled "throughout these 46 years of democracy."

They point out that to date this has been done completely normally because Spanish is the "common" language of all Spaniards, whether "Basques, Andalusians, Castilians, Catalans, Extremadurans" and with which they understand each other in daily life in all countries. places in Spain. "No Spaniard needs an interpreter when speaking with another Spaniard," the letter exclaims.

In it, they also warn that the change wants to be carried out "in a scandalously hasty manner and with the breaking of a golden rule of demoliberal parliamentarism: that the modifications to the Regulations, being the norms that establish the rules of the game of the institution, "They must have broad agreement from the parliamentary groups, as has always happened."

"The claim that half of the Chamber imposes such a far-reaching reform is an unacceptable deception, a true breach of the rules of any democratic system," they warn Armengol and the rest of the deputies of this Legislature.

Thus, and after expressing the "great astonishment" and "consternation" that the initiative has caused them, they wanted to express their "firmest rejection" of a reform of the Regulations that, in their opinion, "contradicts the Constitution, does not adapt to our linguistic reality and is not reasonable.

They emphasize that the plurality of languages ​​and the "cultural wealth" that it entails and must be preserved, but they consider that the greatest wealth is having a "common language" in which all Spaniards understand each other without exception.

For this reason, they remember that the Constitution responds to this linguistic reality, highlighting that the Magna Carta indicates the common language as the only "official language of the State", whose "duty to know it and the right to use it" proclaims in its article 3.

They add that the other languages ​​"will also be official in the respective Autonomous Communities in accordance with their Statutes" but making it clear that "in no case are they 'co-official languages' of the State, so their use in the body that governs them has no constitutional support." represents national sovereignty.

In fact, they consider that the true intention of the promoters of speaking Basque, Catalan and Galician in Congress is to "deny the status of Spanish as a common language of the Spanish." "The deputies would have to use the helmet or the earpiece to understand each other. That would be the new image of the Chamber, distancing politics from the normal life of Spaniards," warn the former leaders of the PSOE, PP, UCD and UPyD.

For all these reasons, they urge the deputies of the XV legislature to, "with a sense of responsibility and for the good of our coexistence, reject an initiative, by virtue of which Congress would change its nature and produce a serious constitutional mutation, aimed at its transformation towards a 'plurinational reality'".

And they emphasize by stating that those who sign this letter would never put on a "headset" to be able to dialogue with a compatriot, "being able to do so in the common language of both, which is the language of all Spaniards."