Oviedo (EFE) through a statutory reform that already failed in the previous legislature.
Thus, the 19 seats obtained by the PSOE, the 3 from the IU and the only one from Podemos -the only three formations explicitly in favor of the officialdom- are now 3 of the 27 necessary to promote a statutory reform in an autonomous Chamber in the that PP, Ciudadanos, Foro and Vox added 19 votes in the last legislature and the right now has 21 (17 from the PP and 4 from Vox).
To them is added the only deputy of the Forum, whose electoral program proposed for Asturian and Fala “as Asturias’ own languages” an “official recognition” that complies with the provisions of the Constitution “adapting to the sociolinguistic reality” of the Principality and guarantees its use with full legal effect for its speakers and voluntary use for those who do not know it or do not want to use it.
Failure of the negotiation of the Statute of Autonomy
Four years ago, and derived from the change in the traditional position of the FSA-PSOE after the accession of Adrián Barbón to the general secretariat, the composition of the autonomous Chamber elected at that time left the officialdom to a single vote of the 27 necessary – the three fifths of parliament – to promote a statutory reform that would include this measure.
Over the course of five months between 2021 and 2022, negotiations were carried out to reform the broken Statute, finally after verifying the Government that the Forum would not contribute its essential vote to add them to the 26 seats that the PSOE, Podemos and IU had while PP , Ciudadanos and Vox remained firm in their rejection of the co-official status of the Asturian and the Galician-Asturian.
If PP and Ciudadanos justified their rejection by emphasizing that the community already has since 1998 -and approved by the only popular government that Asturias has had- with a Law for the Use and Promotion of the Bable/Asturiano and considering that the officiality was going to suppose an imposition of a language that lacks the necessary social demand, Vox described it as “the baby of the nationalist monster”.
Both the Government of Adrián Barbón and the Asturian Socialist Federation (FSA-PSOE) actively and passively insisted that the objective was to implement a model of “friendly officialdom”, which would consolidate rights to the speaker without assuming impositions.
However, the right wing questioned this model, understanding that the officialdom supposes de facto that the administration would be obliged to attend in Asturian, in any place and at any time, to the citizen who demands it, taking refuge in the norm of highest regional rank. .
On the contrary, according to the PSOE, within a statutory reform that must also be approved by an absolute majority in the Cortes Generales, the recognition of official status would only be a first step and a subsequent law would specify with the greatest possible consensus the way to apply it. .
Forum demanded a tax reform
The Forum agreed to start the talks if it was guaranteed that said law would require the same majority as changing the Statute, whose reform ended up linking to another in the fiscal field that included, for example, the practical abolition of inheritance tax, which IU rejected outright. and the PSOE refused to take office without the explicit backing of Podemos and the left-wing coalition.
“I assume this setback as a collective failure, as a lost opportunity that will only be solved if the groups in favor of the officialdom add at least 27 seats in the next legislature,” said Barbón then, who has guaranteed that now it will continue to be one of his commitments. EFE