Spain's PP puts Spanish-only Congress debates in its platform, five days after saying it wasn't there

Five days after its own campaign said the idea was not in the platform, Spain's People's Party has written it into the platform. The program that Alberto Núñez Feijóo presented on November 10 for the November 29 general election pledges to change the rules of the Congress of Deputies so that its debates take place "in the common language of all Spaniards." That would reverse the 2023 change that lets deputies speak Catalan, Basque and Galician with live interpretation, Europa Press reported from the program text.

The pledge settles, at least on paper, a pre-campaign quarrel inside the People's Party (PP) between Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, number two on its Madrid list, and Xavier García Albiol, its lead candidate in Barcelona. She wants to remove "los pinganillos," the interpreting earpieces. He defended them. It also puts language back at the center of the coalition arithmetic. Catalan pro-independence parties set the 2023 reform as a condition for electing Socialist Francina Armengol as Speaker. Junts has already said it would make the PP "eat" the earpieces for four more years if its votes are needed again.

Whether the PP could carry out the change depends on the same numbers that decide the election. Changing the chamber's rules takes an absolute majority of 176 of 350 deputies. Our report on the latest 40dB poll sets out how far the PP is from that threshold on its own and with Vox.

What the program says#

The PP proposes to reform the Rules of Procedure of the Congress "so that parliamentary debates take place in the common language of all Spaniards," according to the program as quoted by Europa Press. Co-official languages would remain available in the Senate, "as exists at present," Europa Press reported; ABC described the Senate as the chamber of territorial representation. The PSOE disputes that picture, saying the PP's absolute majority in the Senate already prevents the use of co-official languages there. "In the same way, Castilian will be the working language in the highest-level bodies of cooperation between the Government of Spain and the autonomous communities," the program adds, which ABC read as an indirect reference to the use of earpieces at the Conference of Presidents.

The language section goes beyond Parliament. The PP says "Castilian is the common language" and that Spaniards "have the constitutional duty to know it and the right to use it." It promises "the constitutional right to receive teaching in Castilian at all stages of the education system and throughout the Nation." That pledge is aimed mainly at Catalonia's school language model. The program also says administrations in regions with a co-official language will address citizens in either language "at the citizen's choice." ABC reported that the program says "cordiality between the co-official languages and the common official language" shows a Spain able to live together "from plurality," and that it drops the word "vehicular" and the phrase "linguistic balance" that the 2023 program used for school languages.

The same chapter contains procedural pledges that have drawn less attention. The PP would limit repeated extensions of amendment deadlines, which it says are used to block bills. It would ban amendments unrelated to a bill's subject and set time limits for bills sent from the Senate. It would keep decree-laws for "truly extraordinary and urgent situations" and require ministers to attend when Parliament summons them. It promises a state-of-the-nation debate "in each full year of the legislature." It would also create a public lobbying register and reform the 1968 Official Secrets Law, Europa Press reported.

How the PP got here#

The pledge was not the PP's official line a week ago. On November 5, Álvarez de Toledo told the radio network COPE that "the first measure I would take, even before the Government is formed," would be to remove the earpieces from the Congress "as a symbol of separation between Spaniards," La Vanguardia reported. Party sources responded that it was "not something that goes in the electoral program" and that the decision belonged to the future PP group in Parliament. "It is not a decision of the Government, but of the Cortes," they said.

Albiol, the PP's lead candidate in Barcelona and mayor of Badalona, said he favored keeping the earpieces, according to ABC. In a televised debate in Catalan on RTVE, he said: "It is a proposal my colleague made in a personal capacity, but it is not the PP's proposal," ABC reported. ABC's November 10 report said party headquarters in Madrid and the Catalan PP now describe the matter as "settled."

The program position matches what the PP has said since 2023. The party voted against the reform, and ABC reported that the party's 2025 political paper said: "We will shield the use of the common language in the Congress of Deputies." Feijóo wrote on X on September 6, 2023: "I am Galician and I speak my two languages, but I cannot conceive of a Congress with earpieces. If all politicians communicate in the common language, it is not right for citizens to pay for us to understand each other in the chamber."

The 2023 reform the PP wants to undo#

On August 17, 2023, the day of her election as Speaker, Armengol announced that Catalan, Basque and Galician could be used in the chamber, even before the rules were changed, according to El Mundo. The formal reform passed on September 21, 2023, with 180 votes, four more than the absolute majority it required, Europa Press reported at the time. The PSOE, Sumar, ERC, EH Bildu, PNV and BNG sponsored it, and Junts and Canarian Coalition voted for it. The PP, Vox and UPN voted against. One PP deputy voted yes by mistake, according to the same report.

Both sides set out their arguments in that debate. The PSC's Marc Lamuá said the reform was "more necessary than ever" because the right had turned Spain's languages into "a tool of confrontation." The PP's Borja Sémper said the party's opposition rested on an "elementary logic": people who share a common language use it to understand each other. Vox's Pepa Millán said the reform did not "protect linguistic variety" but aimed to "attack Spanish." The only amendment adopted, from the PNV, requires laws approved by the chamber to be published in Catalan, Basque and Galician as well as Spanish, with equal legal validity.

What the interpreting has cost#

Cost is a central part of the PP's case. The figures differ mainly in what they count. El Mundo, using official contract data, calculated that the system had cost about €3.2 million through 2025, with a projected €4.6 million by the end of the legislature in 2027 if spending continues at the 2025 pace. ABC put the cost at "around five million euros" since 2023 but did not show its calculation.

The chart shows that the largest single item was a one-time equipment purchase, not interpreting itself. El Mundo reported that the contract awarded in January 2025 had a ceiling of €3,990,315 over 18 months. But firms bill by the minute and by the word, so payments in 2025 came to €919,669. The chamber's tender estimated a maximum of €12.5 million for the full term, El Mundo said. Spending has run well below that because there have been fewer sessions than expected. El Mundo, whose report framed the system as a concession to pro-independence parties, also reported that a growing number of deputies no longer use the earpieces, relying on on-screen subtitles or ignoring the interpretation.

Supporters of the reform reject cost as the main measure. In the 2023 debate, Sumar's Àgueda Micó said that "guaranteeing rights is never expensive, but an investment," Europa Press reported.

The reaction#

The strongest responses came after Álvarez de Toledo's November 5 remarks, and they apply equally to the program pledge. Junts candidate Míriam Nogueras said: "If it depends on us again, you will eat 'pinganillo' for four more years," La Vanguardia reported. In the RTVE debate, she added: "It is thanks to Junts that we have forced the normalization of our language in the Congress," according to ABC.

Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun, the number two candidate for the left-wing Frente Amplio list in Barcelona, said: "We will not allow them to do it, because the use of Catalan in the Congress has been one of the great cultural advances of the country during this term." Industry Minister Jordi Hereu, a candidate for the PSC, the Catalan partner of the PSOE, wrote that "the only ones who see a problem with Catalan being spoken in the Congress are those who do not understand the plurality of our country. Linguistic diversity does not divide us: it defines us." ERC told La Vanguardia that "democracy is recognizing and respecting plurality, not imposing uniformity."

The Spanish Association of Translators, Copy-editors and Interpreters said that "behind the earpieces there are people who make dialog possible" and asked for "rigor" in discussing the profession, La Vanguardia reported.

On the PP's side, the Madrid and Catalan party leadership has not published a separate statement beyond the program. ABC framed the earpieces as a "payment" by the PSOE to Junts for Armengol's election; Europa Press described the reform as one of the conditions the pro-independence parties demanded. Both descriptions are consistent with the parties' own accounts: Junts has repeatedly said it forced the change.

The chart above shows 567politics' dated editorial estimates of where Spain's main parties sit on economic and social axes. It does not measure positions on language policy, which cut across the left-right axis: the PSOE and Sumar joined Catalan, Basque and Galician parties including Junts and the PNV in supporting the 2023 reform, while the PP and Vox opposed it. Placements can be compared on the Spain party spectrum.

Could the PP actually do it?#

A change to the Congress rules is an internal matter for the chamber, not a law the Government passes, as the PP's own sources said on November 5. It needs a final vote by absolute majority. The PP and Vox voted together against the 2023 reform, so a PP–Vox majority after November 29 could plausibly reverse it. No statement from Vox on the PP's new program was found for this article.

If the PP falls short and needs other partners, the calculation changes. Every other party that held seats in 2023, including the PNV and Canarian Coalition, voted for the reform. Our earlier reporting on Feijóo's stated conditions for any deal with Vox and on his other program pledges, such as replacing the minimum income with an "activation income", describes the broader platform he is running on.

What is not known#

No representative poll on the use of co-official languages in the Congress was found for this article, so it cannot say what Spanish voters as a whole think of the earpieces; the reactions above are those of parties and officials. The program text itself was reviewed through Europa Press and ABC reports rather than the PP's published document. The cost figures come from one newspaper's tally of official data, and 2026 spending has not been published. And it is unclear how the PP would handle debates in which deputies insist on using a co-official language after a rules change, a situation the program does not address.

Campaign finance note: Spanish parties report to the Court of Audit (Tribunal de Cuentas); U.S. FEC data does not apply, and those filings were not reviewed for this article.

Photo and reporting note#

Photo: the chamber of the Congress of Deputies in Madrid. Barcex, original file, CC BY-SA 3.0. Quotes from Spanish sources were translated by 567politics.