A MAJOR AND A MINOR VICTORY

The Socialist government obtained an important victory during the 36th Party Congress, held in Madrid over the weekend, when it persuaded the Catalan Socialist party to accept the government's wording for the reforms to be made to the Constitution. Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has insisted all along the reforms could only be made "in accordance with the Constitution and respecting its provisions". The Catalan socialists had tried to make the wording less precise, in order to introduce proposals further down the line that would have been well outside the spirit and letter of the Constitution which has been in force for the past 26 years. A minor victory for the Socialists, which could eventually cause them big headaches, was the acceptance of a proposal to eliminate in the towns and cities with socialist councils all remnants of the regime of Gen. Francisco France, such as street names. The socialists councils have been instructed to "promote the withdrawal of all the external symbols that highlight the confrontation which can only become a thing of the past through the re-establishment of authentic historical truth and respecting those who upheld institutional legality" (Franco's opponents).