Catalan, Basque Galician and Valencian nationalism, with the support of United We Can, has challenged the presidency of Congress when its representatives addressed the plenary session of the Chamber in their respective languages ​​to defend the bill that calls for the possibility that these co-official languages They can be used at any time both in plenary sessions and in the different Congress commissions, as well as in registered documents.

The proposal, signed by ERC, PNV and the

Plural Group,

will not be approved as it does not have the support of either of the two majority forces, PSOE and PP.

The spokespersons of the nationalist formations have used the speakers' gallery to speak in their respective languages, something that the current president, the socialist

Alfonso Rodríguez de Celis

, has allowed them for a few minutes, but later, after calling them to order, he has withdrawn the floor .

The ERC deputy,

Monserrat Bassa,

was the first to take the podium using Catalan and insisting on the "hypocrisy" of a Spain that calls itself plural but in reality only "Castilian Spain" exists.

The president of Congress has called her to order on two occasions and finally she has left the rostrum.

The deputies of JxCAT and the CUP have subsequently insisted on the challenge.

Unlike the latter, the spokespersons for PdeCAT, PNV and Bildu have chosen to translate their interventions.

Subsequently, all these forces have published a manifesto in which they reproach the "space of privilege" that is reserved for Spanish and recall that the co-official languages ​​are "as valid" as this one.

In this sense, they assure that they "reserve" the option of expressing themselves again in their mother tongues "to keep their claim alive".

The proposed law sponsored by ERC, PNV and the Plural Group does not include any calculation of the cost that it would entail for Congress to have a body of simultaneous translators from the different co-official languages ​​into Spanish and at the disposal of both the Plenary of the Chamber and the multiple commissions parliamentary

In the Senate, the chamber of territorial representation, the use of co-official languages ​​is allowed on the occasion of the debate of the motions in plenary session.

It has been estimated that the cost of this provision is around one million euros per year.

In the case of Congress, according to the bill proposed by the nationalist formations, the bill would be much higher.

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