One phrase in an eight-page letter; It is a new sign of the merger of the nationalist and independence parties that supported the inauguration of Pedro Sanchez two years ago. At a time when the government is trying to redirect its tense relationship … With the Catalonia Party threatening to vote against every initiative of the Council of Ministers, the president of Congress, socialist Francina Armengol, celebrated the 47th anniversary of the Constitution by demanding the need to reform it, among other things, in order to “adapt it to the regional diversity” of Spain.
In the majestic Lost Steps Hall of the House of Representatives, and in front of some of the most important authorities in the country, Armengol praised the amendment made last year to Article 49 of the Magna Carta to replace the term “disabled persons” with the term “persons with disabilities.” “We are proving that the rules that govern us are adapted to the society in which we are. And this can continue to happen: new rights and new freedoms that fit within our Constitution. The Magna Carta was written with Europe in mind, and now we can put Europe in our Constitution. We can adapt it to the diverse regional reality of our country, making it a text of the 21st century.”
His words clearly sought to tempt those who boycott the institutional event year after year to remember how on December 6, 1978, the Spanish people supported the constitution en masse, by referendum. No pro-independence party, which Sanchez is counting on to stay in Moncloa, showed up in the House of Representatives on Saturday. The Vox Party, its congressional spokesperson, Pippa Milan, also did not explain her absence in the courtyard before her departure, as has happened since she entered the institutions in 2019.
Armengol, the president who brought the co-official languages to Congress to get the votes of the HRC and Juntes to appoint her, is now demanding nothing less than constitutional reform to adapt them to Spain’s “regional diversity.” Specifically, on the same Saturday in San Sebastian, the spokeswoman for the Basque Parliamentary Group in the House of Representatives, Maribel Vaquero, confirmed that the Magna Carta has outstanding debts while recognizing the various “nations” of the state. Article 2 of the Code of Laws already guarantees “the right to self-government for nationalities and regions,” but it is clear that this debate, 47 years later, has not been resolved.
Without the Attorney General
As usual, a representative of each arm of the Armed Forces carried the Spanish flag from the congressional courtyard to the San Jeronimo race to raise it symbolically. It was 10:30 in the morning, and the national anthem was echoing in central Madrid. After that, Armengol and Senate President Pedro Roland entered the Palace of the Chamber of Deputies to receive the authorities. Among them are Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, President of the Constitutional Court Cándido Conde Pompidou, and President of the General Council of the Judiciary Isabel Perillo. There was also the leader of the opposition, Alberto Núñez Viejo, the vice presidents, ministers, regional presidents, deputies and senators, but there was no State Prosecutor Alvaro García Ortiz, who 365 days ago was the talk of the case for which he was sentenced to two years of disqualification.
The third authority in the state did not mention the fight against corruption, despite the imprisonment of Abalos
After a musical performance, students from Madrid’s Vasquez de Mella Public School, a landmark in linguistic diversity, read the articles of the Constitution in German, French and Italian, before Armengol took the lead. His speech revolved around four axes: the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the dictator Francisco Franco, the upcoming fortieth anniversary of Spain’s accession to the European Union (this was January 1, 1986), the expected reforms of the Magna Carta, and the defense of democracy against the “totalitarian” drift around the world. Coincidentally, despite the recent imprisonment of former Minister José Luis Ábalos, he did not mention the fight against corruption.
At the beginning of the intervention, as if it were one of the celebrations organized by the government this year for the death of Franco, he celebrated that this year 2025 marks “five decades since the beginning of the end of the dictatorship in Spain” and “half a century since the death of the dictator.” The President of Congress defined the transition period as a period of “balances and tensions” in which “the idea of Europe as a goal was what allowed many people to continue moving forward.” “In ten years, this country has gone from dictatorship to holding democratic elections, approving a constitution, recognizing rights and freedoms, launching Spain’s autonomy, spreading our welfare state and entering the European Communities,” he praised.
It appeals to democratic principles against discourses that see “advantage and attraction” in the “loss of freedoms.”
There, in Europe, was the “mirror” into which Spain was to look. “Non quero learn a chamar as cousas polo seu nome / Nesta lingua / quero chamalas polo seu significa,” wrote the poet Miriam Reyes, who received the National Poetry Prize this year (in Spanish: “I don’t want to learn to call things by their names / In this language / I want to call them by their meaning.”) To call things by what they mean is to say, precisely, that Europe is much more than just an organization. Supranational, much more than just a continent. Europe is all its content: the values on which it is built.
Relying on consensus
That is, “equality, solidarity, redistribution of wealth, social rights, consensus.” There is a clear consensus in current policy because of its absence, with exceptions such as the State Charter Against Sexual Violence – which Fox distances himself from – and the Act to Protect Patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Armengol urged your distinguished members to respond in the same way to the housing crisis in Spain by taking measures to ensure compliance with Article 47 of the Constitution.
Finally, the third estate of the state called for the defense of European values as a “democratic necessity” against the “totalitarian bet that generates repercussions” in current societies and “awakens ghosts” that were thought to have been overcome. “We must also defend democratic principles against discourses that see the loss of freedoms as an advantage and an attraction (…). It is necessary to face the era of digitalization and artificial intelligence from a rights-focused perspective, especially children’s rights,” he said, in a speech in which there was no place for former prosecutors, former ministers or former organizational secretaries of the Socialist Workers’ Party.