- It does not seem that Navarra Suma has sufficient support for the entry into force of its Symbols Act: The amendments tabled by the parties in the Navarre Parliament indicate that the majority are not in favour of restrictive and punitive rules in this area.
The majority of the Parliament of Navarra, made up of PSN, Geroa Bai, EH Bildu, Podemos e I-E, will prevent Navarra Suma from passing the Symbols Act regulating the Autonomy Statute. The law provides for fines of up to 150,000 euros for municipalities that come to put ikurrina and aims to bring to schools the recognition of the "exclusive signs of identity" of Navarra.
The Foral Chamber closed last Tuesday at noon the deadline for partial amendments to the law, which the right-wing coalition recorded in August, and despite the various proposals, the parliamentary majority agrees that it refuses to apply very strict criminal rules in relation to symbols; and that it refuses to take a monolithic and official view of symbols.
Therefore, with the amendments tabled by the parties, Navarre Suma can conclude that it will not be able to materialize its proposal and that it will have to bring the Symbols Act in another direction if it is to achieve greater parliamentary support. Otherwise, the right-wing minority will fail in the attempt to re-establish basically punitive rules which do not exist in other autonomous communities.
In addition, the Government of Navarre issued a report in September in which it refused to continue the processing of the law, for a number of legal errors. However, in October the PSN voted in plenary and the text will reach the committee on 22 January 2020.
The PSN warns, yes: A law that brings the "war of flags" to schools and peoples would not be protected. This is the case in the nine amendments tabled by the Chivite party, which have been left without a majority. They call for the deletion of Articles 12 and 13 of the text provided by Navarra Addition on the exaltation of the "exclusive marks of identity" in schools and the distribution of the flags of Navarre of the peoples, as well as the repeal of the whole chapter of sanctions, especially hard in the case of municipalities that place Ikurriña: Sanctions from EUR 2,000 to EUR 150,000.
All the parties that have tabled amendments to repeal the two parts of the law are in agreement, but there is a big difference in the idea of the Symbols Act which should be Navarre and, therefore, it will be very difficult to achieve sufficient consensus to push through new rules.