The PSOE is preparing an express reform of the Congress Regulations to use Catalan and Basque in Feijóo's investiture

Barajan register the text this week, approve it in plenary session the week of the 19th and hire urgent translators

MADRID, 5 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The PSOE is preparing an express reform of the regulations of the Congress to be able to use Catalan, Basque and Galician in the investiture debate of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, scheduled for September 26 and 27.

The plan is to register a bill this week, agreed with the nationalist and pro-independence formations, with the idea that it can be admitted by the Congress Table at its meeting next Tuesday and processed through the urgent procedure, which means cut parliamentary terms in half.

With their absolute majority in the Congress Table, the PSOE and Sumar would take that text to plenary session in the week of September 19 to 21 to approve it in a single reading, that is, without going through the Regulation Commission, which has not yet been constituted. . They are justified by equating this text with the regulatory reforms that, at the beginning of each legislature, only change the name of the parliamentary committees.

While the bill is approved in plenary, for which it needs an absolute majority and that none of the minority formations stand out, the Congress Table, thanks to that majority of PSOE and Sumar, would urgently hire translators for the Feijóo investiture debate. It is foreseeable that helmets would also have to be distributed so that the deputies and the shorthand services could follow the speeches in co-official languages.

To expedite all administrative procedures, these emergency contracts would be paid with the surplus fund available to Congress with the surpluses that have been generated year after year with unexecuted budget items. According to the latest data published by Congress, as of March 31, 2022, the closing date of fiscal year 2021, the amount of this fund was 108.24 million euros. Later, a public competition would be called to establish this staff of translators.

At a press conference in Congress, the spokesman for the Socialist Group in the Lower House, Patxi López, pointed out that "having co-official languages ​​is a great wealth" and "everything possible" must be done so that these languages ​​can be used. "And if for that it is necessary to reinforce the regulation, we will reform it ·", he has settled it.

The use of Catalan and other co-official languages ​​in parliamentary debates in plenary and commission was a commitment that the PSOE acquired with the independentists of ERC and Junts in exchange for their vote so that the socialist Francina Armengol was elected to preside over the Chamber and with it gain the majority at the table.

At his inauguration, Armengol promised to allow the use of Catalan, Basque and Galician in the Plenary Sessions of Congress from day one, but days later he cooled down that measure, specifying that some fringes needed to be closed.

The Regulations of Congress do not determine that one must speak in Spanish nor does it prevent speaking in the languages ​​of the autonomous community, but some lawyers had already warned that generalizing the use of co-official languages ​​could cause deficiencies in parliamentary procedure and generate a risk of defenselessness in the other Members who do not know those languages.

This was announced on National Radio by the lawyer Manuel Fernández-Fontecha, who maintains that this measure needs certain regulation because it affects the rights of the deputies who are unaware of them, potentially causing them to be defenseless, because they need to understand what is being said to guarantee the necessary parliamentary debate.

"There is a facet that is being ignored: obviously there is a right to use the co-official language, but there is also a right for the remaining deputy to understand what is being said," he stressed.

In other words, if this right to understanding is not guaranteed "a procedural defect could be incurred in that there would not be a proper debate, because there is a party that would not understand the other". "It is necessary to guarantee that the use of languages ​​not known by other deputies does not make them defenseless", summarized the lawyer. UNTIL NOW THE PSOE REJECTED IT

Until the last legislature, the PSOE was opposed to the use of the co-official languages ​​in Congress, alleging that Spanish is the only official language in the entire State and referred its use to the Senate. In fact, he voted against taking into consideration an initiative raised by his partners from Unidas Podemos.

But now the context has changed and, as El Periódico reported last week, the PSOE and ERC have already reached an agreement in principle to reform article 70.2 to make it clear that "the speaker may deliver his speech in any of the languages ​​they have." official status in any Autonomous Community in accordance with the Constitution and the corresponding Statute of Autonomy".

The Minister of the Presidency confirmed this negotiation last Wednesday and said he was confident that "soon, however long it takes to reach an agreement with the parliamentary groups", the use of the co-official languages ​​can be guaranteed. "Because Castilian is as Spanish as Catalan, like Galician, like Basque," he remarked.

The PP has been rejecting all the initiatives proposed in Congress for the use of Catalan, Basque and Galician, as has Vox, which has already announced that this legislature will also oppose any reform in this regard.