He “bos días, good morning, egun on, bon dia” intoned by the president of the Congress, Francina Armengol, when she was elected, it served to display her intention that the co-official languages of the State can be used with absolute normality in the chamber, a commitment that the PSOE acquired with ERC and Junts to guarantee the leadership of a progressive Table in the Lower House. But beyond the normalization of use in plenary, Socialists and Republicans have agreed to a modification of the institution’s regulations that they will register this week so that Catalan, Basque and Galician have legal certainty to be used both in plenary sessions and in the commissions and in the written register of initiatives, in this case, together with their text in Spanish, as well as in the Official Gazette of the Cortes Generales.
The draft, to which EL PERIÓDICO has had access, makes it clear that the three languages may be used in any parliamentary debate. “The speaker may deliver his speech in any of the languages that are official in any Autonomous Community in accordance with the Constitution and the corresponding Statute of Autonomy”, reads the wording of the proposal, which modifies article 70.2 and two other articles adding this tag to provide regulatory coverage, since the current regulation does not regulate it in any section, that is, it neither allows nor authorizes it and leaves it at the mercy of the interpretation made by the president of Congress.
This maneuver is the result of the negotiation between the PSOE and ERC, within the framework of the negotiations after the 23-J electionsand guarantees compliance with the agreements sanctioned by both parties after several clashes between pro-independence deputies and the then head of the institution took place during the last legislature, Meritxell Batetfor the use of Catalan in the chamber.
Procedures
The presentation of this reform of the regulations of the Congress does not imply the immediate shielding of the co-official languages, but sources familiar with the negotiation affirm that they are studying accelerating its approval with a fast-track registration and even with the holding of a extraordinary plenary session for its approval so that parliamentarians can express themselves in Catalan, Basque and Galician already in the first plenary sessions of the legislature.
For the final processing and approval, the Congress Table must establish a session calendar in order to start the plenary sessions and establish the different work commissions. Later, once the Table accepts this initiative -something that they have insurance with the progressive majority of PSOE and Sumar- its acceptance to process must be debated in plenary session. The next step will be its study in commission and, finally, the return to the plenary for final approval.
In recent days, Armengol has avoided going into details about how this initiative would be channeled and he did not want to reveal whether the reform of the Congress regulations would be necessary, but, finally, it has been so. Both ERC and Junts, along with other formations, have already tried carry out a similar reform in June 2021, but the PSOE voted against it. They argued that currently the use of Catalan, Basque and Galician was limited in the lower house to “quotes and phrases immersed in the different interventions” and that in the Senate their use was greater. “Therefore, in the Socialist Parliamentary Group we understand that there is a reasonable balance in the use of one’s own languages in the Cortes Generales”, defended his deputy Guillermo Antonio Meijon Couselo.
the other institutions
The proposed reform now goes beyond the situation that exists in the Senate. Since 2005, senators have the right to use any of the co-official languages included in the autonomy statutes -Catalan, Basque and Galician-, although with limitations. Mainly, they can only do it in plenary sessions, never in ordinary commissions, and to defend motions. That is, only those texts whose purpose is for the Chamber to rule on a matter, but lack legislative effects. In the debate on propositions or bills, the use of Spanish is still mandatory.
Related news
The approval of the use of the co-official languages in the lower house will facilitate compliance with other of the commitments adopted by the Sánchez government last summer, such as the use of Catalan in the European Parliament. In 2006, the Government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero He made a similar attempt so that Catalan, Basque and Galician could be used in the plenary sessions of the Eurochamber. Sources from this Chamber recall that, at that time, one of the political arguments used to reject the petition was that none of these languages were used in the Congress of Deputies. However, this would change now. In this sense, on August 17, the formal request of the Government was registered in the European Council: a letter signed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jose Manuel Albaresa commitment that the PSOE acquired with Junts to cast their vote in favor of the president and the Congress Table.
What remains to be resolved now, with the modification already channeled at the regulatory level, is the investment required at a technical and logistical level, to guarantee the translation and avoid leaving those deputies who do not know these languages defenseless.