The leader of the opposition proposes that the agreement to eliminate the term “diminished” from the Constitution serve as a pillar on which to resume the dialogue
Alberto Núñez Feijóo extended his hand to Pedro Sánchez this Saturday to “lay the foundations” for a chain of great State pacts. The leader of the opposition, who came to define himself as “progressive”, showed his most conciliatory side at the XI ONCE State Congress in Madrid. There, he proposed an agreement with the Socialist Executive to eliminate from article 49 of the Constitution the “archaic” and “unfair” term “disabled” and replace it with “disabled.” And that this pact serves as a pillar on which to resume the dialogue in Moncloa with the aim of achieving the “greater good of social and economic development” of the Spanish.
The head of the Popular Party recalled that the Spanish Committee of Representatives of Persons with Disabilities (CERMI) and ONCE itself have been asking insistently for years to reform the Constitution. “Let’s see if we can do it. If the Government is willing, we will sit down this month and before the long electoral periods begin, we could have it approved, “said Feijóo. “It would be a good deal, the first deal,” he predicted.
“general interests”
Practically all of his speech was a nod to Sánchez to bring positions closer. “Dialogue is possible. And there is no reason to think that the agreement is not possible”, the president of the PP abounded, who defended that the Government and the opposition have to find “time and space” to share “reflections” always seeking to comply with the ” philosophy of agreement for the general interests.
“Our hand is outstretched,” insisted Núñez Feijóo, before advancing some of the fields in which an agreement would be good, such as measures to “mitigate” inflation, “alleviate” the energy crisis, strengthen national defense or “deepen” in judicial independence.
According to Feijóo, these pacts are urgent given the situation that Spain is experiencing with an economy that has not recovered the levels of 2019 prior to the pandemic, with an “uncontrolled increase” in prices, with “slowed job creation” and “more 13 million people at risk of poverty.
stuck
The reform of the Constitution that the leader of the PP wants to serve as a starting point for subsequent agreements has been stalled for more than a year. In May 2021, the Council of Ministers approved the reform project of article 49 in which the term “disabled” no longer appeared, but that of persons with disabilities.
But something as simple as eliminating an expression requires nothing less than an entire constitutional reform, so the change must be approved by three-fifths of Parliament (210 deputies and 159 senators), a very qualified majority.
When in September 2021 the plenary session of Congress debated the amendments to the entirety, both Vox and PP vetoed the reform. And the numbers do not give. Until today, the PP was reluctant to open the constitutional “melon” to prevent the reform from reaching other “sensitive” points in the text. Feijóo slipped this Saturday, however, the idea that a report from the Council of State could serve to avoid having to submit a change of this minor legal significance to a referendum.
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