No banners, no posters, no leaflets. Nor shouting, applause, exclamations, display of symbols, or “other similar actions.” These are the prohibitions for the public included by the president of the Madrid City Council Plenary, Borja Fanjul, in a resolution issued this past Wednesday. The text does not change the current regulations but specifies their application after about thirty childcare workers on indefinite strike for a month were expelled from the last session for shouting and throwing leaflets with their demands.
“In the last sessions of the City Council Plenary, incidents have occurred that have affected its normal development and even could have compromised the safety of those present and the perpetrators themselves,” the resolution begins. This Wednesday, the childcare workers threw several leaflets from the podium to the public before being expelled, which fell to the floor just behind the bench where PP and Vox sit. In March, members of the Tenants’ Union and residents of Carabanchel, Villaverde, and Vallecas threw orange sheets in protest. They were also removed.
The resolution, made public a day after the last session, lists several articles of the Organic Regulation of the Madrid City Council Plenary. Specifically, article 55.3, which states: “Expressions of approval or disapproval by the public will not be allowed. In extreme cases, the president may order the expulsion of persons who for any reason impede the normal development of the session and decide on its continuation, under the terms provided in the previous article.” Fanjul adds that, given what happened in the March and April plenaries, “it seems appropriate to adopt preventive measures aimed at avoiding these incidents […] in order to strengthen the better functioning of the sessions.” In other words, it expands and specifies what cannot be brought or done in Cibeles. The regulation allows this in its additional provisions: “The president of the Plenary may issue resolutions for the interpretation and application of this Regulation.”
In this case, the public must remain silent during the plenary and “ensure that nothing falls and not throw any type of object from the podium into the session hall.” They may also not enter the hall with sharp or cutting objects, nor containers holding liquids, gels, or similar substances.
Attendees are prohibited from applauding, shouting, exclaiming, displaying or carrying symbols, banners, leaflets, posters, or “any other object, instrument, or means likely to be used to compromise the safety of those present or disturb order.” Security agents have the authority to confiscate these objects at the access control to Cibeles or during the plenary. Persons carrying them will not be allowed to enter the hall or will be removed if already inside.
The leader of Más Madrid in the capital, Rita Maestre, has criticized the resolution, which she considers “arbitrary,” “sectarian,” and a “partisan and authoritarian use of institutions”: “The president of the plenary, Borja Fanjul, is scandalized because the childcare workers, in their legitimate and peaceful right to protest, threw a handful of leaflets in the plenary yesterday. However, he was not so scandalized when Ortega Smith assaulted a Más Madrid councilor [Eduardo Rubiño] or when the Popular Party councilors dedicate themselves to insulting session after session.”
The incident Maestre refers to occurred in the last plenary of 2023. The Vox spokesperson confronted Más Madrid councilor Eduardo Rubiño and threw a bottle at him. “Now, cry,” he said. The mayor and the opposition called for the councilor’s resignation. Fanjul gave Ortega Smith the floor to apologize. He was not expelled from the hall, and Más Madrid and PSOE left the session.
The text now signed by Fanjul also refers to councilors. Anyone who seriously breaches discipline, order, or due courtesy inside or outside the plenary and in commissions, causing disorder by their conduct, deed, or word, “will be immediately expelled from the session hall by the presidency.”
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