The works being carried out in the Congress of Deputies to facilitate the progressive implementation of the right to use and understand official languages ??in the Lower House are advancing at a good pace so that, for this period of sessions, the necessary means will be established so that there is simultaneous translation in up to three committee rooms at the same time.
This was confirmed this Friday by the Presidency of the Chamber, guaranteeing that the committee sessions that will take place in the coming months – from those enabled for January to those included for the February-June window that has already been approved by the Board of Spokespersons -, “the right to use and the right to understand the official languages ??will be covered” upon request to the Chamber’s services.
The express reform of the regulations of the Lower House for this purpose was debated in September and added a large absolute majority of 179 votes in favor, with 171 votes against the PP, Vox and UPN.
In the exceptional case that more commissions are carried out at the same time and until the system is fully implemented, the criteria established for the use of the official languages ??will be the one set for this transition period: the translation into Spanish by the same speaker or the deliver to the Presidency of the Commission the intervention translated into writing and with sufficient advance notice so that it can be provided to all attendees.
The text will be taken to the Table and Board of Spokespersons next Tuesday for validation and takes a new step in the gradual application of languages ????in debates in parliamentary bodies.
The process will culminate with the full implementation of the definitive translation and accessibility system in Congress, which will involve the adaptation of chambers, committees and other areas of parliamentary work to the possibility of use and understanding of the official languages, as well as access to the language. of signs and highly readable and listening systems for people with vision, hearing or other problems.
The Congress Session Diary corresponding to the session held by the Justice Commission on December 21 does not include the words spoken in Catalan by the spokespersons for Junts, Josep María Cervera – who made his entire intervention in that language – and ERC , Pilar Vallugera, who alternated between Catalan and Spanish.
Cervera’s determination to use Catalan, knowing that simultaneous translation had not yet been enabled for the rest of the members of the commission, provoked a protest from the spokespersons for the PP and Vox.
For this reason, in that session, the president of the Justice Commission, the socialist Francisco Lucas, warned that those who expressed themselves in co-official languages ??had to provide the rest of the groups with the text of their intervention in Spanish and that this would be the one that would appear in the Session Log.
However, this publication, consulted by Europa Press, does not include Cervera’s speech. “(He makes his intervention in Catalan)” is all that appears in the section dedicated to his speaking turn. The part of the speech that Vallugera made in Catalan is also not reflected, although in his case, he chose to self-translate.
The direction of debates in parliamentary committees corresponds to whoever holds the presidency of each body and there is no unanimous criterion on how to act until simultaneous translation is enabled. For example, one day before Bolaños’ appearance, the president of the Joint Commission (Congress-Senate) of the European Union, the popular Francisco José Conde, chose to remove Junts deputy Marta Madrenas from speaking for wanting to do Catalan his speech during the appearance of the then economic vice president, Nadia Calviño.
Conde argued that without the necessary means for simultaneous translation, the presidency could not order the debate and the other members of the commission lost their right to follow and understand the interventions.
