Next Thursday, January 18, Congress will vote – with the participation of 33 Valencian deputies – on the Valencian amendment to the constitutional reform project of article 49 to recover the regional right provided for in the Statute. It is a moment that will mark the history of Valencians, as José Ramón Chirivella points out in this interview: “that can empty our historical and statutory identity through the back door.”
President of Valencian Jurists, Chirivella has for years led the demand for Valencian Civil Law to be integrated into the Constitution as have Galicia, the Basque Country, Navarra, Aragon, Catalonia and the Balearic Islands. The motto of the rally is “Don’t vote against our people”, something that has happened many times in Congress. This Sunday there will be a rally in Valencia in Plaça dels Furs in defense of Valencian Civil Law.
This week is presented as the last opportunity for Civil Law to be recognized in Congress. Are you optimistic?
This is such a unanimous request from the Valencian people that even many regional deputies and VOX councilors are in favor of having their own civil laws to regulate family and inheritance law. I am increasingly optimistic, I believe that we are going to get the autonomist Núñez Feijóo to realize that for Valencians our regional law is a sign of historical identity, and on top of that not questioned by anyone, ask the Vice President of the Consell, Vicente Barrera, or Ignacio Gil Lazaro.
But the PP has not guaranteed its vote in favor.
For the PP to vote against this amendment, included in the Statute by Camps, would be a disregard for President Carlos Mazón, and especially, for María José Catalá. The PP cannot be free to use the senyera in the electoral campaign, and attack regional law, our identifying mark par excellence. It may happen that on the 18th they will defeat us again, but this attack on our identity would occur after 45 years of a Constitution that recognizes historical nationalities. I think that the PP is going to realize the irreversible error that a vote against the Foral Law would lead to. Let’s hope that Mazón and Català do not give up under the pressures of the centralist side of the PP, with recent and growing influence on Feijóo’s team, given the apparent organic weakness of González Pons.
If the PSOE and the PP finally vote against, what steps does the association plan to take?
Valencian society is pressing from unity. On Thursday we held a press conference at the Valencia Bar Association and there was talk of hypocrisy, flagrant breaches of repeated electoral promises or refusals impossible to justify, given the confirmation that this restitution does not cost anyone money, and restores rights in the personal sphere (family, successions, disability, survival of the family business,…)
But those votes are not guaranteed
Who in their political right mind can vote against a statutory competition? Many more Valencian civil leaders have defended the restitution in separate events held in Congress and I do not think they are willing to give in, in the face of unfounded excuses created by posh centralists who apply the same anti-Valencian recipes since the time of Felipe V.
I insist, is there a plan b?
There is no plan B. I do not think it is possible for Sánchez to be so unfair, that he dares to surpass Zapatero in contempt for Valencians, when he has signed a territorial agenda with sovereignist forces, discussed by a large part of his electorate. He’s not interested. In good democratic logic, deputies who vote against the Statute should renounce their deputy status. Plan B is to make everyone involved pay politically. In politics you cannot make yourself ridiculous, nor always lie to yourself. Bolaños and the sector close to the PP – the one that could be in VOX – want to leave us without signs of identity. All Valencians must be outraged by this possible disloyalty.
What have been your conversations with these parties? Who have you been able to talk to?
In the electoral campaign of 23 J we agreed with Esteban González Pons and Fernando de Rosa that the PP would promote a state pact with the PSOE for Valencian Foral Civil Law. In September we met with Puig – after seven years of trying – and Carlos Mazón. We asked Puig to meet with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. We have tried different efforts with the domes of Genoa and Ferraz, so far unsuccessful. We will have the solution this Thursday. Mazón and Puig should be focused on this issue as a priority. They play, we play, a lot.
The Compromís amendment is additive and also aseptic. It shouldn’t be difficult to support her.
This is the amendment of Valencian society. A director of Juristes Valencians, lawyer Luis Higuera, prepared the constitutional reform proposal with an original and very technical nature, which after obtaining the agreement of 4 parliamentary groups, waits in Congress for four years. Personally, he invited Joan Baldoví to present the amendment to the constitutional reform of article 49 during the last Congressional term. It is the amendment of the Valencians, fed up with so much disloyalty to our civil rights. Statutory rights are inapplicable.
It is hard to believe that other autonomies have their civil rights recognized and Valencians do not. Why it happens?
It is one more part of the discrimination of the Valencian Agenda. They refuse to recognize our identity, and that we are a historical nationality. With modern regional law, applied with social consensus, we have more possibilities of demanding full compliance with the Valencian Agenda (infrastructures, investments, forgiveness of improper debt of 40,000 million euros, change to a fair regional financing model,…)
More than five hundred municipalities have been in favor, including the Valencian Cortes. What else can be done?
At the municipal and social level, very little else. More municipalities and represented population support this constitutional reform than when we agreed to the autonomous process. Compromís should have tied up this issue and others in the investiture process, like the rest of the nationalists. But they missed that train, as we warned them.
As a jurist, I ask you, what does it mean for Valencians not to have their own civil law? In marriages? In inheritances?
Provide ourselves with rules closer to the Valencians, such as greater freedom when making a will, or incorporating causes of disinheritance of forced heirs, or having the figure of the will of l’u per a l’altre, a joint will formula prohibited by the Civil Code, and that most of the 20 million citizens of the 6 provincial territories have. In the area of ??strict family law, provide rights to the members of de facto unions in matters of succession, maintenance of family expenses, or use of the home in the event of the death of the couple for one year, or provide you with the regime of separation of assets, without the need for marital agreements. In the area of ??family business, a succession regime that favors its survival would be very important, as it supports the majority of Valencian workers. As Jurists we have defended that the Cortes must legislate with the maximum consensus, and be agile in the search for legislative solutions suitable for societies as dynamic as ours.
What does it mean from a historical, and also symbolic, point of view that the Valencians cannot recover a part of the Furs lost in 1707?
They were taken from us by force, and we constantly fought to reclaim them. In the face of any discrimination, we Valencians resorted to regional regulations, as when Charles IV tried to carry out a levy in 1802, which was finally revoked, due to the extent of the riots, as Pilar Garcia Trobat testifies in her book “Nostalgia for the lost privileges.” by Tirant Lo Blanch, a title with which I do not agree. We thought they had been recovered both with the Statute of 1982, and especially with its identity reform of 2006.
You are calling for a rally this Sunday in defense of Civil Law. Have you received support from all parties for the appointment?
La Vall ens Uneix, Jorge Rodríguez’s party, the coalition of local parties Decidix, Compromís, and many mayors and councilors from the PSOE and PP will participate in the event. Vicent Soler, the most Valencian personality of the PSPV, and other personalities from Valencian society and municipalism will make brief interventions in their personal capacity. The support of Mompó, the Valencian soul of the PP, for the concentration, will move consciences.