The PP deputies arrived at the first plenary session of the legislature with the instruction not to use earpieces of the Chamber to hear the translation of the co-official languages. Everyone was convinced that only Spanish would be used in their party, although the speech, in the hands of Borja Semper, I would bet on defending the linguistic wealth of Spain. Beyond the reproaches to the PSOE for now promoting the use of Catalan, Basque and Galician when until a few months ago it was directly opposed, the PP intended to be very combative with the procedure by allowing the president, Francina Armengol, the use of all these languages before debating and voting on the reform of the regulations.
“The public powers are subject to the Constitution and current legislation. “I ask that the development of this plenary session be done in accordance with the regulations,” he went on to say. Cuca Gamarra at the beginning of the plenary session, asking for the use of the floor in the last attempt to stop the Government parties and their partners and demanding that the debate take place in Spanish. Two hours before the plenary session, the members of the PP at the Table asked Armengol again without success.
And in the previous meeting of the popular group, before starting the session, the deputies heard the same argument behind closed doors. That’s why the surprise was capitalAccording to various PP deputies admitted to this newspaper, when Sémper used Basque up to four times in his intervention.
The national leadership was quick to justify it: it was the use of a co-official language in the terms in which it was already permitted, accompanied by an almost simultaneous translation by the deputy.
Some members of the leadership recognized it as a “mistake” not having transferred it to the popular parliamentarians to avoid the confusion that, clearly, occurred. But the reality, according to members of the steering committee in Genoa, the leadership of the parliamentary group and the bench of deputies, is that Sémper’s use of Basque was “excessive” for the intended objectives, to the point that it was not understood internally.
“We have shot ourselves in the foot. This plenary session was very easy for us. He opts for Sémper for obvious reasons. But there is no point in having such an incoherent position. after saying the day before that we would not make the canelo”, reflected different deputies, some with extensive experience in the party.
Some leaders felt especially bothered by the fact that a message was conveyed contrary to the position finally adopted in the plenary session, even after Gamarra, general secretary of the party and spokesperson for the parliamentary group, attacked the use of co-official languages before to approve the reform of the regulations. “So we complain about something that we also do?”some deputies asked themselves.
The reality is that there was no resounding applause, much less a standing ovation at the end of Sémper. Some deputies could not hide their discomfort in the gesture. A strange scene, they say in the parliamentary group, taking into account that it was the debut of the party being the first force after 23J and with Feijóo in his seat.
Those around the conservative leader defend Sémper’s speech and continue to include it in the PP’s strategy of avoiding major fires in Congress or raising blisters among political groups one week before Feijóo’s inauguration. This long-term roadmap, looking especially at parties like the PNV, seeks to get out of the polarizing discourse of the right that, for example, Vox maintained, even leaving the chamber when the PSOE deputy began to speak in Galician.
But it is not an argument that the rest of the deputies seem to share: many put the focus on “disconnection” that, in his opinion, the leader and his hard core have with the rest of the party, and especially with the deputies who now sit with him in Congress. The ‘bunkerization’ that has given the PP so many headaches after the ‘shock’ of the general elections.
There is a concept in tennis that is very useful for any area of life: avoiding “unforced errors”
— Alejandro Fernández (@alejandroTGN) September 19, 2023
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The leader of the PP in Catalonia, Alejandro Fernández, very critical of some actions of the leadership in recent weeks, wrote on his social networks a message that many other party officials read along the same lines: “There is a very concept in tennis. useful for any area of life: avoid unforced errors. This is the view held by other deputies in Congress this Tuesday, who still did not understand why the party had chosen to “overact.” and “getting into unnecessary trouble”.
Some leaders also warned “the situation of weakness” in which Feijóo was with this type of action, when precisely on issues as sensitive as language, the PP often feels divisions. “It was not a day for buddies of any kind.”, explained a deputy. He also referred to the way in which Gabriel Rufián responded to Sémper in the second round of interventions: “I wish the Spanish right was more like you than Ayuso”.