Replying to questions from journalists before this morning’s meeting of the Board of Spokespersons and subsequent Standing Committee meeting at the Congress of Deputies, Mr. Erkoreka stated that this did not seem to him to be "an unnecessary expense in a time of crisis" as others have described it, because "it does not entail any increase in the budget allocated to the Upper House", "represents less than 1% of the total budget spending" and cannot therefore be considered "excessive".

He ended by saying that he would like "the same thing to be done in the Lower House" and referred to a “joint initiative with other parliamentary groups to reform the rules of Congress and enable joint official languages to be used there too".