Meritxell Batet: "Reaching agreements is not a sign of weakness, it is the strength of democracy"

Rosa Marquez of the Order

One more year, the president of the Congress of Deputies, the socialist Meritxell Batet, has been the speaker in charge of opening the summer course organized by the Association of Parliamentary Journalists (APP) at the Rey Juan Carlos University. The president has insisted on the need to foster dialogue between the different political forces that make up the parliamentary arc: “We must dignify consensus. Reaching agreements is not a sign of weakness, on the contrary, it is the strength of democracy”. Batet has lamented that the parties "do not compete to occupy the space in the center, but for the extremes" and has summoned politicians to be more demanding with their parties and fight for the common good.

Political fragmentation has been joined by the economic crisis and the challenge that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has posed for Europe. "There are more and more movements that seek to question the system and therefore question those values ​​that we share. A cultural battle is taking place to challenge those values ​​of Western democracies: the need to generate equality, our own territorial organization of the State, of solidarity or the need to face challenges such as climate change", the president pointed out.

European politicians

Along with Batet were the rector of the university, Javier Ramos, and the journalists Anabel Diez and Luis Carlos Ramírez. The latter has recalled the importance of caring for democracy "in the face of institutional detachment from citizenship." The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, sent a greeting to the attendees and the Vice President of the European Commission, the Greek Margaritis Schinás, intervened by videoconference.

The three-day course will feature in the next sessions the Minister of Territorial Policy and Government spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, who will speak on governance and the challenges of the State in times of crisis. The last session will be closed on Wednesday by the president of the Senate, the socialist Ander Gil.