The reform of the Constitution to eliminate the term "disabled" from its article 49 is now closer after the PSOE and the PP, after reaching an agreement in the last few hours, registered this Friday in the Congress of Deputies the initiative to its modification, which will need the support of three-fifths of the Lower House. The reform will replace the word "disabled" in the text with "people with disabilities" and will protect by law the "special" protection of their rights.
Just a week ago, Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo agreed in their first meeting of the legislature to take steps towards unblocking this issue, which requires harmony between the two main parties for it to see the green light from Congress. The opposition leader was willing to accept the reform as long as the President of the Government committed to preventing his government and parliamentary allies from taking advantage of the operation to demand a referendum that would open a debate as such about the validity of the Constitution.
Once this issue was resolved, both agreed to register the text for the modification urgently, even before the end of the year. And so it has happened. In fact, as EL MUNDO reported, the two main parties had agreed on the text for the reform of article 49 of the Constitution for more than half a year, but the draft was finally kept in a drawer, until this Friday.
As detailed by both parliamentary groups, the agreement between the PSOE and the PP includes a processing calendar and the objective of the two parties is to achieve "definitive" approval in the short term, in January 2024. To achieve this, the The proposal for constitutional reform has been processed through the urgent procedure and in a single reading.
The PP's commitment is simple, they explain in Genoa: a "surgical" reform for the modification of a specific term, and nothing more. After the agreement reached between Sánchez and Feijóo, the general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, and the Minister of the Presidency, Relations with the Cortes and Justice, Félix Bolaños, took the reins of the negotiation, although the matter was resolved relatively quickly and without major discrepancies between the two main parties.
This Wednesday it was Feijóo who, in an annual review appearance of his party, revealed that the conversations for the modification of article 49 had accelerated in the last hours and that its registration was imminent. Minutes later, Bolaños confirmed the information given by Feijóo and specified that this Friday at the latest the reform would be processed in the Congressional registry so that his parliamentary path could begin.
Minister Bolaños celebrated the "country agreement" reached between the two main parties to pressure the PP with the following: the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), since "the situation of Justice is desperate" and "no "There is an alternative." For this reason, he urged Feijóo, "with high vision and responsibility," to achieve "soon" an agreement that unlocks the renewal of judicial bodies.
«Where there is will there is a way for agreement. Dialogue and agreements cannot be the exception, they must be the norm in daily politics," reiterated the Minister of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Justice, who expressed his desire for the rest of the parliamentary groups to support the modification: "There is no reason not to support it," he said after highlighting the "personal commitment" of the President of the Government to carry out this modification.
