The language policy reform carried out by Spain’s lower house of parliament was a condition for Catalan separatist parties to support a Socialist representative
Madrid, Spain19 Sep 2023, 22:26 2804 read 1 comment
Deputies of the far-right party “Vox” demonstratively left the plenary session of the Spanish Parliament. The reason – the decision to allow today for the first time the people’s representatives to use the languages of the minorities in the country – Catalan, Basque and Galician, reported the Associated Press.
The reform of the language policy carried out by the lower house of the Parliament of Spain (the Congress of Deputies) was a condition for the Catalan separatist parties to support a representative of the Socialists (in this case Francina Armengol) for the post of president of the lower house, which she was elected last month.
Parliamentary elections in Spain in July ended without a clear winner, the agency recalls. The right to speak in the national parliament in a language other than Spanish has long been a goal pursued by small parties from areas in the Spanish North where the population is bilingual.
A change
“(The first change is) … to make normal what citizens who speak a language other than Spanish are already used to,” said Spanish Socialist Workers Party (ISWP) representative Jose Ramon Besteiro, who during his statement was switching from Spanish to Galician, becoming the first lawmaker to take advantage of the innovation, AP said.
The parliament provided simultaneous interpretation with headphones for the three hundred and fifty deputies of the lower house, the Congress of Representatives, as well as for the needs of the telecast of the first post-reform parliamentary session on national air. The conservative opposition has spoken out against the reform, arguing that it will make debates more difficult.
The support for Spain’s minority languages comes as the country’s current prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, seeks to rally nationalist and even separatist parties from the autonomous regions of Catalonia and the Basque Country to form a new left-wing government.
Millions
Catalan is spoken by about nine million people in the Spanish north-east, in the Balearic Islands, and also by a small population in France. Galician is spoken by two million people in northwestern Spain, and Basque is spoken by 750,000 of the country’s citizens from the autonomous regions of Basque Country and Navarre.
The Spanish language is also known in the country as “Castilian” or “Casteiano” because of its roots, which originate from the Kingdom of Castile. It is spoken throughout the country of 47 million people, including in areas with surviving minority languages.
Spain’s 1978 constitution recognizes minority languages as co-official alongside Spanish in the areas where they are spoken. Their use is common in local parliaments and town halls.
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2023-09-19 19:26:33
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