The Spanish government continues to find ways to cut spending and is now looking at eliminating the practice of speaking five different versions of Spanish in parliament.
Currently senators are allowed to debate in either Castillian, Catalan, Galician, Valencian or Euskara with interpreters on the ready to translate their words into the most common version of Spanish: Castillian Spanish. Wasteful is what many view this as especially at a time when the rest of the country is living under severe austerity measures.
Spanish parliament has 25 interpreters on its payroll at a cost of 12,000 euros a day or $16,300. The issue of language is a sensitive matter since a lot of these different Spanish versions are unique to certain regions and much debate exists around what is the true national language.
There are several other languages spoken in the country which are not allowed in parliament such as Aragonese, Asturian and Aranese. The matter is currently under debate, no final decision has been made.
