Being able to speak Catalan, Basque and Galician in Spain's Congress of Deputies in exchange for allowing the Bureau of the lower house to be dominated by the progressive bloc. This is what Yolanda Díaz offered this Wednesday to ERC and Junts, the two Catalan pro-independence parties that have the power to place someone from this bloc as the speaker of Congress. "At Sumar we believe that Spain's parliamentary chambers should be encouraged to reform their regulations so that we can express ourselves in the co-official languages", she stated, asserting that "progress" needs to be made in Spanish parliamentarianism so that Spain begins to show its "plurality". The co-official languages are the four languages from the Spanish state which are only official in certain territories where they are spoken: Catalan, Basque, Galician and Aranese.
"We will submit it to debate", promised Spain's acting second deputy PM, who showed herself confident that she would be able to count on the support of the Socialists (PSOE) in this initiative. "It should have been reformed a long time ago," she said. It must be remembered that this has been an eternal demand of the deputies from the Catalan, Basque and Galician nationalist parties, but that it has never been fulfilled despite the good intentions expressed at times by the Socialists. In an interview with Spanish public TV, Díaz asserted her pride in being Galician, and that it therefore makes sense for her to defend this initiative herself.
It should be remembered that Junts and ERC are interested in handing over the speakers's position in the Congressional Bureau to the PSOE, beyond this proposal of being able to speak in Catalan. The two Catalan pro-independence groups have not managed to obtain their own parliamentary group in Congress, because they have less than 15 deputies and did not obtain a minimum of 15% of the votes in all the constituencies where they stood in the recent general election. The Socialists, who are very clear that in this legislature they will need to foster good harmony with the parties headed by Oriol Junqueras and Carles Puigdemont, have shown themselves open to "assigning" some of their MPs to the Catalan parties and thus making it easier for them to have a parliamentary group.
At the same time, Yolanda Díaz assured that initial contacts have already taken place between Jaume Asens and Junts. Asens, the Catalan politician who was until the election head of the Unidas Podemos parliamentary group, was delegated the responsibility of convincing Carles Puigdemont to use the Junts deputies' votes to invest Pedro Sánchez as PM. "He is a lawyer of recognized prestige", Díaz pointed out, to argue that he is a good candidate to "negotiate with Catalan groups".
"I am being quite discreet if I say that myself and Mr Asens have been working both in the negotiation with the PSOE and with other parties that are progressive and democratic; from the very first minute we have been working on the possibility of having a progressive investiture in Spain", she defended, and asked not to be pressed for more information about it. The Spanish government, on the other hand, does not recognize Jaume Asens as an interlocutor sent by Pedro Sánchez.