The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, and the Secretary of State for Relations with the Courts, Rafael Simancas, meeting with representatives of CERMI.CERMI
The pre-agreement between PSOE and PP to replace the term "disabled" by "persons with disabilities" in article 49 of the Constitution was almost done, the negotiation resumed, but the matter seems to run aground again, despite the political commitments made at the highest level with the Spanish Committee of Representatives of People with Disabilities (Cermi).
The PSOE and PP negotiators, Minister Félix Bolaños and the Popular Secretary General, Cuca Gamarra, have met to resolve some obstacles on Wednesday of next week and both express their theoretical readiness for the pact.
But the PP maintains some misgivings, political and legal,
The government sources consulted acknowledge that there is still no agreement closed with the PP, but they think that Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party "has it very difficult" to continue with its resistance to reforming the Constitution on such a sensitive issue and that they unanimously demand the social entities and Cermi, which represents the majority of the sector.
The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, addressed the PP on Monday with the aim of resuming and promoting the talks and bringing positions closer to agree on this constitutional reform.
Bolaños will meet Gamarra next Wednesday in Congress and also with representatives of other parties.
The commitment acquired in previous appointments by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the opposition leader, Feijóo,
with Cermi executives is that the matter would be resolved shortly to execute the constitutional change before the end of the legislature.
Time no longer spares.
“It is the will of the Government to modify article 49 of the Constitution to give more dignity and more rights to people with disabilities.
Our will and what we are asking of the rest of the parliamentary forces and in particular of the main opposition party is that we move from words to deeds, ”said Bolaños after his appointment with the CERMI leadership.
“I think it is essential that we approach the reform in the coming months and that we do it as these types of modifications to the Magna Carta have to be done: with consensus, with agreement and with the desire for our country to be a better country every day” , abounded.
The Government approved on May 11, 2021 the draft reform of article 49 of the Fundamental Law to eliminate the term "disabled" and replace it with "persons with disabilities".
Since then, the parliamentary process of the first social reform that is undertaken in the constitutional text and that the social entities unanimously demand remains stuck, partly because several elections have crossed its path.
Sánchez included this reform among the 11 pacts that he proposed to Feijóo on April 7 at their first meeting in La Moncloa with the aim of "contemplating the different dimensions of the protection of people with disabilities and reorienting its content towards an approach that guarantee their dignity and autonomy.
The project has just closed its deadline for presenting amendments to the Constitutional Commission of Congress from June 2021, due to the lack of agreement with the PP.
Vox also expressed its disagreement.
The PP still does not trust the Government, nor the PSOE, nor the intentions of other parties.
PNV, JuntsCAT and even Ciudadanos have registered amendments (something that neither ERC nor EH Bildu did) and in them they do not limit themselves to supporting the literary modification of article 49, as required by the PP.
The two nationalist parties propose other variations related to increasing the autonomy capacity of their territories and Cs, on the contrary, reinforcing state powers.
An association of Valencian jurists has requested another change connected with the reform massively supported in their community, including by the PSOE and the PP, to recover aspects of their civil law and a historical matrimonial economic regime, in which they prioritize shared custody and separation of property after divorce.
Gamarra will demand "guarantees" from Bolaños that all these other debates will not be allowed.
The PP, in addition, also uses some allegations and drawbacks raised by a 29-page report from the Council of State, not so much about the substitution of the term, as about "improvement and perfection" of the constitutional reform consulted to grant more protection to people with disabilities.
Those responsible for Cermi observed this Wednesday's meeting with Bolaños as very positive and appreciated the government's interest in meeting next week with all the parties to achieve a claim that they have been pursuing for so many years.
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