Minorías lingüísticas en la Constitución Española: la admisión de las lenguas cooficiales en la actividad parlamentaria

Abstract

Linguistic minorities in the Spanish Constitution: the admission of co-officials languages in the parliamentary activity - The Spanish Constitution of 1978, already in its Preamble, states the desire to protect the languages of all Spaniards and towns of Spain and pursuant to Article 3, in addition to recognising that they will be official in the respective Autonomous Communities in accordance with their Statutes of Autonomy, it establishes that they will be object of special respect and protection. On the basis of these premises, the Spanish lawmaker undertook in 2010 a reform of the Senate Rules concerning the use of the official languages in the Autonomous Communities but restricted to the activity of this chamber. In 2023 the Spanish Congress of Deputies debated the reform of its Rules to allow the extension to this chamber of the use of the Autonomous Communities co-official languages. This reform was not without controversy, a fact that is reflected in this paper.

Keywords: Spanish constitutional law; Minority language rights; Spanish parliamentary culture; Territorial integrity; Asymmetrical state