The languages which are referred to in Spain as "co-official" are getting some official attention in the Senate. This Wednesday, a full session of the upper house accepted for debate a reform of the regulations, promoted by Together for Catalonia (Junts), which seeks to expand the use in the chamber of Catalan, Galician and Basque, which have co-official status along with Castilian in the main territories where they are spoken. The decision today ensures that the initiative will at least be debated in the regulations committee and that its parliamentary trajectory will continue. In addition to Junts, the PSOE, ERC-EH Bildu, the PNV and the Confederal Left alliance, among others, voted in favour. The triple right opposed it: the PP, Vox and Ciudadanos, as well as some minor groups.
The text, presented by senator Josep Lluís Cleries, proposes that the use of co-official languages be permitted in all parliamentary activities of the Senate, including questions to the Spanish government, debates on bills and participation in committee meetings. Right now, that can’t be done. The use of Catalan, Basque and Galician is only permitted during the debate on motions.
During his speech, the Junts spokesperson in the upper house argued that this initiative "does not go against anything or anyone", but in favour of all languages. “The important thing is that they have effective and recognized use” and that they be used “on equal terms” in order to eradicate “certain supremacisms,” said Cleries. Heading off predictable criticism, the senator calculated the economic cost of this reform at 950,000 euros. He said that "normalizing the use of Catalan, Galician and Basque can never be considered a waste of resources". On the contrary, "if this chamber is truly territorial," it should allow "everyone to express themselves in their own language".
The debate on this initiative coincides with the controversy over the proposed Spanish audiovisual law, which the Sánchez government has now postponed. It took the step after the storm that was raised by the preliminary draft bill, which does not provide for any enhanced protection of the co-official languages such as Catalan, Basque or Galician. The Spanish government is trying to negotiate the law with the government of the Generalitat.
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Meanwhile, the Popular Party led the bloc arguing against the reform of the regulations. Catalan senator Alícia Sánchez-Camacho spoke, accusing Junts of wanting to turn the Senate into a "tower of Babel of languages we don't understand" full of "translators and headphones". And she questioned the 950,000 euros calculated by Cleries, warning that the the real figure could be three times as large. She said that in 2010 it was estimated that the cost of using co-official languages in the debates on motions would be 70,000 euros a year, and in fact, 300,000 euros are now being spent on the service.
Sánchez-Camacho also provided the anecdote of the debate, assuring that the poet Ausiàs March was Galician (he was Valencian) and that philosopher Ramon Llull was from Menorca (he was Mallorcan). Specifically, she asserted that "languages are not the heritage of nationalists, but of all Spaniards". And she added: "Ausiàs March is not Galician, nor is Ramon Llull from Menorca, nor Àngel Guimerà, Eugeni d'Ors, Jacint Verdaguer, Joan Maragall, Rosalía de Castro - none of them are the heritage of the nationalists. They are the heritage of all Spaniards because they mean the cultural and linguistic richness of a plural and diverse Spain that all of us Spaniards love".