Cuba is the country with the largest number of new Spaniards registered under the recent Democratic Memory Law (LMD), according to data collected by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation of Spain until the end of last January.
On the occasion of the Balance of Consular Activity for 2022, the agency reported this week that up to that date the Consulate General of Spain in Havana had received 4,041 applications to benefit from any of the cases included in the popularly known “Grandchildren’s Law.” And it granted citizenship to 1970 of those cases, according to a report by the Europa Press agency.
These numbers must have grown at an accelerated pace, considering that the consular representation on the island recently announced that it would increase the number of daily appointments available for filing applications, given the high demand.
At present, Cuba is the sixth country with the highest number of resident Spanish citizens, only surpassed by Argentina, France, the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom, according to the compilation contained in the Register of Spaniards Resident Abroad (PERE) disclosed early this year by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) of Spain.
This compendium indicates that 160,833 Spaniards live on the island, almost 120,000 more than in 2009; an increase in which the approval in 2007 of the Historical Memory Law and the LMD itself have had a significant influence.
In addition, Cuba appears in second place among the countries where more Spanish passports have been issued (25,446), only surpassed by Argentina.
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Region’s data
As expected, the consulates in Latin American countries lead the list of those that have received the most nationality applications since the entry into force of the LMD, on October 19, 2022.
The provision, promoted by the coalition of left-wing parties that governs the Iberian nation, aims to repair the damage caused to thousands of Spaniards during the regime headed by General Francisco Franco, and offers the option of obtaining nationality to a wide range of Spanish descendants who meet a series of requirements.
Cuba, Mexico and Argentina are the three countries where more people have obtained Spanish nationality under the new regulations. A total of 14,610 applications have been received and there are 4,774 registered nationalities, the media highlights.
The approval of the LMD, after months of being “frozen” due to the lack of consensus among the parties represented in the Spanish Congress, had generated great expectations in the region.
The wide demand caused the collapse of the requesting system for prior appointments to carry out the procedure in some of the consulates with a greater presence of Spanish descendants, such as the case of Argentina.
The three Spanish consulates in that South American nation had submitted up to January 31, 7,119 applications, of which 1,145 had been approved.
During the first three months of the law’s validity, 3,450 applications had been received in the three consulates throughout Mexico, and 1,659 new Spaniards had registered. According to the report, as for other nationalized Latin Americans, Uruguay (533), Peru (335), Guatemala (238) and Venezuela (120) appear on the list.
Until the cut-off of the information disclosed, 24,729 applications for access to nationality had been received in the 179 consular offices available to Spain throughout the world. Of this total, 12,862 had been approved, while 6,653 were registered in the Civil Registry.
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Of the rest of the world’s nations, the eight consulates on French soil accumulated 566 applications for Spanish nationality, of which only 22 completed the process.
In the seven consular offices in the United States, 549 applications had been submitted, but only 80 had achieved registration as Spanish citizens.
Long and complex route
Beyond the complexities to comply with any of the requirements for access to Spanish nationality under the LMD, the regulation has been rejected by opposition parties since before it was promulgated.
Once approved, these parties and other groups have tried to torpedo the process by filing judicial appeals against the application of its provisions.
This Tuesday the Constitutional Court (TC) admitted for processing the appeal filed by the Popular Party (PP) against the Democratic Memory Law, as it did last February with Vox’s debate on this same regulation, Europa Press specified.
As reported by the court of guarantees, the new appeal alleges that the LMD could be contrary to article 1.1 of the Constitution, according to which “Spain is constituted in a social and democratic State of Law, which advocates as superior values of its legal system freedom, justice, equality and political pluralism.”
The press agency points out that for the PP the regulation infringes fundamental rights such as ideological freedoms, freedom of expression, education and literary and scientific creation, as well as the constitutional order of distribution of powers, the reserve of organic law and municipal autonomy.
Vox also resorted to the LMD when considering that this means “exalting the memory of some Spaniards and despising the memory of others,” with which, in its opinion, “it is intended to dynamite one side of the Civil War from the collective imagination.”
Previously, the Superior Court of Madrid had accepted a contentious-administrative procedure against the LMD filed by the Association for Reconciliation and Historical Truth “for skipping the substantive and formal procedures” in the application of the established.
In addition, it requested the adoption of precautionary measures to suspend the regulations that enable the process of nationalization based on the new law.
Spain and all other free nations should defy US sanctions on Cuba.