A few minutes after noon on Tuesday, September 19, 2023, the socialist deputy for Lugo, Xosé Ramón Gómez Besteiro, announced from the Congress rostrum: “It is a double honor to introduce the simultaneous translation system in my mother tongue”. Immediately the headphones and screens were activated with complete precision to translate his words into Spanish. A parallel automatism shook the Vox bench, where some cries of protest arose before its deputies stood up and angrily left the chamber, depositing the translation devices in the empty seat of Pedro Sánchez, on an official trip to New York. The small commotion stopped the session for a few seconds, until Besteiro was able to continue: “…In short, make this Parliament more like the country it represents.”
The Congress thus inaugurated a historic stage: for the first time in 45 years of democracy, debates will be able to take place in Spanish or in any of the other three co-official languages recognized by the Constitution. The use of Galician, Catalan and Basque began even before it was officially approved. This provoked another previous protest, in this case from the Popular Group, whose spokesperson, Cuca Gamarra, questioned before the session began that the unrestricted use of any of the three languages was already allowed when the extraordinary plenary session had been convened precisely to process the proposal. of joint law of the PSOE, Sumar and the nationalist groups to reform the regulations of the Chamber and consecrate its new multilingual vocation.
The president, Francina Armengol, replied that the current regulation does not contain any reference to what the language of use should be and therefore did not prohibit what was beginning to happen. Despite this, the proposing groups will leave the new language uses established in the norm that regulates the functioning of Congress. And they will do it quickly, through the so-called single reading procedure, which will allow the proposal to be definitively approved next Thursday without first having to go through the ordinary procedure in committee. The Government has managed to gather a majority of 179 seats in favor of the initiative, also joining the only parliamentarian from the Canarian Coalition, who had remained outside the majority that last August placed Armengol in the presidency of the Chamber, precisely with the commitment to allow the use of co-official languages as one of the bases of the agreement.
And during the morning the interventions took place in different languages. Besteiro was succeeded by another Galician, Sumar’s spokesperson, Marta Lois, who combined the two languages, just as the only BNG parliamentarian, Néstor Rego, would do in different interventions. Gabriel Rufián, from ERC, and Míriam Nogueras, from Junts, expressed themselves entirely in Catalan. Joseba Agirretxea, from the PNV, also used only Basque, while Mertxe Aizpurua, from EH Bildu, introduced some paragraphs in Spanish. Abundant personal and sentimental appeals were heard to the links with their respective mother tongues, as well as quotes from great poets who wrote in them: Gabriel Aresti, Salvador Espriu, Álvaro Cunqueiro… A general tone that Borja Sémper, of the PP, found to be a “epic hypoglycemia”, despite the fact that he himself, who the day before had considered that speaking languages other than Spanish in Congress would mean “making a fool of himself”, introduced several paragraphs in Basque.
In the chamber, very few deputies used headphones. In the case of the PP, it was a deliberate measure, to make its opposition clear. The translations could also be followed by the subtitles that, with a delay of a few seconds, appeared on the giant screens. But the leader of the PP himself, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, dedicated himself to looking at his mobile phone during the intervention of the Peneuvista Agirretxea, which earned him ridicule from Rego. “It seems that he has learned Basque before English,” said the BNG deputy ironically, who also reproached him for voting against the measure as “indecent” when he was president of Galicia for 13 years.
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In his defense of the PP’s position, Sémper focused more on issues of form than substance. He insisted that his group defends the “cultural diversity” of Espala and criticized, above all, the haste with which it was processed. “And that is because your partners do not trust you,” he discredited the PSOE, whom he reminded that a little over a year ago he voted against a similar initiative presented by nationalist groups. “We have a common language that allows us to understand each other without doing strange things,” he argued, before concluding: “We are not going to participate in this theater.”
Vox’s opposition did not show the slightest nuance. His deputies even starred in a humorous moment. After their initial presentation, they returned to the chamber to continue the PP’s intervention. But as soon as Sémper spoke the first words in Basque, they gave up again. Then, its spokesperson, Pepa Rodríguez Millán, railed against what she called an “artificial tower of Babel,” built to please those who “want to dismember Spain.”
On the Government side, the speeches focused on praising the linguistic diversity of Spain and highlighting that what is now implemented in Congress has been common for decades in regional parliaments. The nationalists took the opportunity to claim the nationhood of their respective territories. Rufián, from ERC, criticized the “intransigence” and “ode to ignorance” of the right for radically opposing the measure. And he raised laughter in the plenary hall when he highlighted that the real threat to Spanish is the massive introduction of English words into everyday language, which led him to parody: “We can debate this in coworking by looking at our outfits… ”.
The sudden change of position of the PSOE, which for years rejected this measure, deserved criticism among its own partners. “The defense of linguistic rights by some seems to be directly proportional to their political needs,” said Agirretxea without naming names. Míriam Nogueras, from Junts, pointed out along the same lines that the proposal does not move forward out of “conviction but out of necessity.” The satisfaction he showed with the measure did not deter Noguera from his usual defiant tone. He assumed that soon Congress will debate self-determination and let it be known that his group is not going to back down from the threat of unilateralism: “We do not renounce any of the paths to achieve freedom.” [de Cataluña]”.
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