Congress speaker to allow Catalan to be spoken in the next plenary session

A resolution from Spanish Congress speaker Francina Armengol will allow co-official languages such as Catalan to be spoken in the next plenary session, scheduled for September 19.

This comes weeks after pro-independence Junts and Esquerra agreed to name Socialist MP Armengol as congressional speaker in exchange for being able to speak Catalan in the chamber.  

The reform will allow MPs to speak in not only Spanish, but also Catalan, Basque, Galician, and other protected languages such as Aranese, Aragonese, or Asturian. 

The Congress Bureau will approve the speaker's proposal on Wednesday allowing for the languages to be used in next week's session.

To make this possible, the chamber will hire translators and enable a system similar to the one that has been operating for years in the Senate.

In next week's plenary session, the reform of the regulation that establishes the use of co-official languages in all parliamentary activity will be approved.

The debate on September 19 will also see the beginning of a transitional period of "months" to adapt all Congress activity to the use of other languages.

Lawyers' report

The news comes despite the fact that the lawyers of the Congress issued a report on Tuesday warning that it will be "very difficult, if not impossible" to apply the language reform in the short term, but which endorses the legality of the proposal.

Sources from the Spanish Congress point out that despite the lawyers' considerations, they still propose to admit the reform and go ahead with its ratification.

The report, to which the Catalan News Agency (ACN) has had access, goes against what the Spanish governing parties Socialists and Sumar, Catalan pro-independence Esquerra Republicana, Basque parties EH Bildu and PNB, and the mixed group want to see in force. 

The parties driving the legislation would like to see it implemented before the investiture debate of the conservative People's Party leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, on September 27. 

The lawyers warn that the reform affects procedures of the chamber "in an integral way," as well as all the regulatory deadlines and, by extension, "the entire operation" of the Congress.

Lawyers consider that in order to guarantee the rights of MPs, introducing the co-official languages to Congress "inexcusably requires" translation and interpretation mechanisms.

"From the moment when the use of the co-official languages is allowed, it will be necessary to ensure the understanding of the debate and its purpose, and to provide full legal validity" the report outlined. 

Despite these considerations, the lawyers propose allowing the reform to continue its procedure and submit it to the plenary, as requested by the promoters of the initiative.