MADRID, 13 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The PSOE and the PP declare themselves open to seeking new agreements on social matters after the pact they have reached for the reform of article 49 of the Constitution aimed at replacing the term ‘disabled’ with that of ‘people with disabilities’, which will be approved next week in Congress.
The spokesperson for Disability Policies of the PSOE, Emilio Sáez, and the deputy secretary of Conciliation and Equality of the PP, Aná Alos, have agreed on this in interviews that they have given to the Parliament program on Radio Nacional and that have been collected by Europa Press.
“I love that we have been the first to open the spigot of that capacity for agreement,” confessed the socialist Sáez, who has not ruled out that this consensus between the two majority formations could be repeated in other matters. “I think it would be good and convenient for the two major parties in this country to agree on some issues,” he indicated.
For his part, Alós has indicated that the PP will continue to put its social proposals on the table with “the spirit of reaching agreements with all political forces to solve the real problems of the people.”
In fact, the ‘popular’ leader has highlighted that, “despite the fact that the political difficulties of the moment” make “reaching agreements” “very complicated”, for the PP it has been “a priority” to make the reform of the article 49 that had already been agreed upon last June but was not finalized due to the advance of the general elections.
For his part, Sáez explained that this change has taken so long to arrive because there were groups that feared that others would take advantage of the fact that the Constitution was going to be touched upon to propose “bigger” changes.
“But it was fair that, as a matter of urgency, we presented this reform and, above all, that the two majority parties in the Chamber do so. Aside from political differences, there can be no differences in this and I think that is how we are seeing it all groups,” the socialist deputy congratulated himself.
Both have agreed to emphasize that it was “justice” that the Magna Carta stopped using a now “pejorative” term to refer to people with disabilities. Saéz, who belongs to this group, has recalled the different names historically given to them in official documents.
“In the 70s ‘subnormal’, in the 80s ‘invalid’, in the 90s ‘handicapped’, in the 2000s ‘disabled’. We had to wait until 2008, when Spain acceded to the Convention of the United Nations Rights of Persons with Disabilities to use a terminology that is valid for us, which is people with disabilities. People as the first position and with disabilities as something added,” he explained.
“This reform is promoted to respect the dignity of people with disabilities and to also comply with Spain’s international commitments regarding Human Rights,” summarized the ‘popular’ deputy.
