“This is the temple of the word”, stressed the president of the Congress, Francina Armengol. And the word, in Spain, is expressed in Spanish, and also in Catalan, Basque and Galician. Now also in the Lower House, “to make the citizens who listen to us understand us”, defended the Balearic Armengol. With full “democratic normalcy”, according to a large absolute parliamentary majority.
“Diversity is not detrimental to unity, uniformity does not guarantee cohesion”, Xosé Ramón Gómez Besteiro, socialist deputy for Lugo and ex-leader of the PSdeG, who celebrated the honor of being the first parliamentarian, then alleged to be able to use his mother tongue, Galician, from the tribune of the Carrera de San Jerónimo palace, and without any restrictions, to “normalize in this Chamber what is already normal for millions of citizens”.
“A historic day”, agreed many of the parliamentary spokespersons who took part yesterday in this first plenary session of a multilingual legislature. The ERC president, Oriol Junqueras, also used the aforementioned qualifier for this day at the doors of the Congress before the session began.
Despite the opposition of the Popular Party and the noisy protest of the extreme right of Vox, the Congress of Deputies thus successfully inaugurated – technically and, above all, politically – a legislature with an uncertain course, but with the pretense of being the first multilingual , who passed his first exam with flying colors yesterday. There was no incident recorded in the simultaneous translation and subtitling of the co-official languages, nor in the use of headphones, despite the haste to organize the technical deployment.
And it was the first plenary in which their lordships could debate in Spanish, but also in Catalan, Basque and Galician without any impediment. On this occasion, the consideration of the proposal to reform the regulations of the Lower House which will allow the deputies to do so, already with complete normality, in all their parliamentary activity from now on. Also in the investiture debate to which the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, will appear next week, who will give way, if he fails as planned, to the turn of the leader of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez.
The absolute majority of 178 votes totaled by the formations proposing the initiative – the PSOE, Sumar, Esquerra, EH Bildu, the PNB and the BNG–, with the support of Junts per Catalunya, opened the doors wide open to this first multilingual legislature in Spain, despite the opposition of the PP and the abandonment of the ultra-right wing of Vox. The congressional reform law proposal thus passed its first stage – the consideration – with 176 votes in favor and 169 against. Its express processing, in a single reading, added an even wider absolute majority, of 179 votes in favor, as the yes of Coalició Canària was added, and 171 against: those of the PP, Vox and UPN. The Lower House will give final approval to the reform in Thursday’s vote.
All together with the opposition of the right. Before the Galician socialist Besteiro took the floor in his language, which he alternated with Spanish, the spokesperson of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, sitting next to the also Galician Feijóo, raised a point of order to the president of the Congress, to claim compliance with the law. As he denounced, the use of all the co-official languages ??was launched in this plenum before the law that would allow it was taken into consideration, debated, voted on and published in the BOE.
President Armengol replied that the reconsideration proposed by the PP could not stop the plenary, which continued its course. Then the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, got up from his seat and left the chamber, followed by all the far-right MPs. When they left, they contemptuously threw their headphones on Pedro Sánchez’s empty seat, and many ended up on the floor, so the ushers had to pick them up.
The socialist Besteiro was then able to continue his intervention, and congratulated himself that, despite the right-wing protest, what he considered a “certain historical anomaly” had been overcome, and that Spain and its institutions could move forward, specifically, in the recognition of its plurilingual reality.
Sumar’s spokeswoman, Marta Lois, also spoke in Galician, alternating with Spanish. “The possibility of speaking in one language does not negate the others”, he defended. And the ERC spokesperson, Gabriel Rufián, then celebrated that he can now express his speech, in its entirety, in Catalan. “Do you see how speaking in other languages ??is not so bad, that we break the right?” Rufián quipped.
Mertxe Aizpurua (EH Bildu) and Joseba Agirretxea (PNB) then spoke in their own mother tongue, Basque. “Those who have left are the same ones who used to kick us out of class, fine us or put us in prison for speaking Basque. Now they are gone. We have made some progress”, celebrated Agirretxea after the departure of the Vox deputies. And the spokesperson of the BNG, Nestor Rego, also did it in Galician, with another full speech in his own language.
In the interventions against the reform of the rules of Congress, the strategy of the PP was, to say the least, contradictory. After Gamarra rejected on behalf of his group the use of the co-official languages ??before the law was approved, Borja Sémper took to the podium and made part of his speech in Basque.
The Vox deputies were returning to their seats, it is understood that as a gesture of deference to the PP, but when they heard Sémper speak in Basque, they quickly left the chamber again. The popular deputy defended, in Spanish and Basque, the linguistic diversity in Spain, but accused the proponents of the initiative, and singularly the PSOE, of “despising the common language”.
Borja Sémper defended “the coexistence of languages ??without confrontation”, and rejected the “interested patrimonialization” of the co-official languages ??in this debate. “In Spain we are lucky to have a common language, which is Spanish”, concluded Sémper. He said it in Spanish and also in Basque, despite the fact that the day before he warned that the Popular Party would not do “the peach” in this plenum.
