The leader of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, announced this Friday an agreement with the PSOE to register in the Congress of Deputies the bill with which both parties intend to replace the term “disabled” with “people with disabilities” in the Constitution, which would thus undergo its third reform in 45 years.
“The information I have is yes. That probably today or tomorrow he will register to complete the first procedure before December 31, and that later in January we will have the full monograph,” declared the head of the opposition in an interview on Servimedia.
With the final agreement on the table, Feijóo celebrated that the reform “means paying a debt with almost 10% of the population” that represents “the world of disabilities,” although he asked the Government’s partners to commit to not to use “the world of disabilities in a crooked way to raise a referendum or questions other than what article 49 indicates.”
“It means fulfilling the word we had given to carry out the reform, which we should have already done in the previous legislature. It also means paying a debt to almost 10% of the population, the world of disabilities, which had a name in the Constitution that today is absolutely decontextualized. And it also means proving that when you want, you can,” he declared.
“It is true that to reform the Constitution, the agreement of the two major parties is necessary. And we, when something is proposed to us that makes sense and that is born from society and the world of disabilities, we do not hesitate for a moment. My first commitment as president of the party, back in April 2022, was to come and pledge that unconditional support in front of Cermi. In the end we were able to do it,” he celebrated.
The two main parties will thus fulfill the commitment signed by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and Alberto Núñez Feijóo last week, when they promised to register the bill in Congress before the end of the year. For the PP leader, this agreement will settle “a historical debt with the world of disabilities” by “updating” the “law of laws” and ending a “decontextualized” term.
Once the bill is registered, Feijóo’s intention is for it to be approved “quickly.” The formula demanded by the PP is that it be approved in a single reading in an “extraordinary and monographic” Plenary Session of Congress in January, so the third reform of the Constitution could be approved in the Lower House in less than a month.
The interlocutors of both parties, the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes, Félix Bolaños, and the general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, have led the negotiations that rescue the text promoted by both parties in the previous legislature. However, the reform then faltered due to early elections.
Feijóo hopes that “all” parties will support the reform and respect the “precautionary issue” he raised. “That is, let’s not take advantage and not use the world of disabilities torturously to propose referendums or raise questions other than what article 49 indicates.”
“I hope that the Government’s partners comply. What I can assure is that we have enough votes to move it forward. There are 258 seats between the Socialist Party and the Popular Party, but the logical thing would be for the entire Chamber to vote yes unconditionally to eliminate the term handicapped and to welcome the constitutional text of the term disability, which is the term we have used ordinarily since decades ago,” he concluded.
Feijóo thus demanded that the pro-independence and nationalist parties not use this issue to promote a referendum for purposes unrelated to article 49. To do this, it is necessary to involve Yolanda Díaz in the agreement, since with the current configuration of Congress a possible consultation.
Article 167.3 of the Constitution states that, “once the reform has been approved by the Cortes Generales, it will be submitted to a referendum for its ratification when requested, within fifteen days following its approval, by one tenth of the members of any of the Chambers”, that is, 35 deputies or 27 senators.
The numbers do not indicate whether Sumar is committed to not requesting this public consultation, since the Government’s partners, including Podemos, have 32 parliamentarians in Congress – 33 with the Canary Coalition – and 20 in the Senate – 25 with the Canary Coalition, Geroa Bai, Gomera Socialist Group, Independent Herreña Group and Eivissa i Formentera to the Senat–.
