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POLITICAL WILL TO MAKE GALICIAN, BASQUE AND CATALAN WORKING LANGUAGES OF THE SENATE (Avui)
April 2004 – The new President of Spain’s Senate, Javier Rojo (PSE – Basque Socialist Party), has stated his will to introduce the use of all co-official languages, i.e. Galician, Basque and Catalan, in the upper chamber “in the medium term”. At present, according to Standing Orders of the Senate (Sections 11 bis and 56 bis.7), the senators are only allowed to use such languages on two occasions: on the day of the President’s take-over and in the so-called Debate on the State of the Autonomous Communities, which has only been held twice. Rojo has commissioned a study in order to assess the technical and economic impact of such a change, although he has stated that the introduction of multilingualism in the Senate is a matter of political will. This measure will be launched in the framework of a wider reform of this chamber in order to fully abide by Article 69.1 of the Spanish Constitution, which states that it shall be “the House of territorial representation”.
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