The parliamentary groups of the PSOE and the PP have registered this Friday afternoon in the Congress of Deputies the proposal to reform article 49 of the Constitution, to eliminate the term “disabled” and replace it with “people with disabilities.” , in compliance with the agreement reached on the 22nd by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. The registered text requests that the reform be processed through the urgency and single reading procedure, so that it is definitively approved in January 2024, that is, in less than a month. The objective now is to achieve maximum consensus among the parliamentary groups and, if possible, unanimity, and for the new text to be endorsed in full between January 16 and 18. The agreement has been closed by the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, and the general secretary and number two of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, after several days of intense contacts.
The text of this third specific reform of the Constitution – the previous ones were in 1992, to recognize the right to passive suffrage of community citizens, and in 2011, to impose a restraint on public spending – includes, in addition to the statement of reasons for justify its need, a single article with two points, as EL PAÍS advanced. The first of them will be worded as follows: “People with disabilities exercise the rights provided for in this Title under conditions of real and effective freedom and equality. The special protection necessary for said exercise will be regulated by law.” The second point reads: “The public powers will promote policies that guarantee the full personal autonomy and social inclusion of people with disabilities, in universally accessible environments. Likewise, they will encourage the participation of their organizations, in the terms established by law. The specific needs of women and minors with disabilities will be particularly addressed.”
The project, which the associations of affected people had been demanding for 20 years, considering the word “disabled” “unworthy and outdated”, has been agreed upon by the Government, the PSOE and the PP with the Spanish Committee of Representatives of People with Disabilities (Cermi). The associations estimate that in Spain there are now around 4.5 million people with some disability.
Socialists and popular people have included in the agreement a calendar to process this constitutional reform with the utmost urgency, in a direct and single reading, with the intention that its consideration be approved next month, in a monographic plenary session in Congress which according to parliamentary sources could be convened between January 16 and 18. The first session would open a formal 48-hour period for the presentation of amendments and the second would definitively approve the reform, to then send it to the Senate and immediately publish it in the Official State Gazette.
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Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo gave the final push to the agreement—an unusual approach in the current climate of permanent political confrontation—in their meeting last week. Previously, in April, they had reached a very similar pact, which fell apart due to the proximity of the two electoral campaigns in May and July. The PP then justified its halt to this initiative by not trusting that some partners of the Executive, especially the pro-independence parties, would not take the opportunity to open the door for other constitutional changes. An idea that flew over again now, when the popular ones warned that Sumar could provide its seats to join other groups and include other proposals for constitutional reforms or even demand a ratification referendum.
Sumar denied this claim and in fact the new Minister of Social Rights, Pablo Bustinduy, from that formation, clarified it to the representatives of the affected groups, to whom he promised his unwavering support. What Bustinduy has demanded is that the pact made between PP and PSOE be extended to all parliamentary groups from the presentation and registration of the proposal, something that has not finally happened but is now being pursued for the time of its debate in the full. The biggest problem in achieving unanimity is in Vox, which is not against the replacement of the term “disabled” but does not trust either the PSOE and its allies, nor the PP, and which could propose amendments as it did in its moment before the previous agreement.
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