Madrid/The consulates in Argentina and Cuba account for more than 50% of the more than 300,000 applications for Spanish nationality submitted between October 2022 and March 2024 under the Democratic Memory Law, which allows descendants of exiled Spaniards to enjoy this benefit, according to data revealed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation.
According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, since the law came into force on 22 October 2022 and until 31 March 2024, the Consular Civil Registry Offices had received 301,121 applications for the option of Spanish nationality of origin. In the first year of the measure coming into force, according to data collected at the time by Europa Press, more than 102,000 nationalities had been granted.
More than 95% of these requests have been received at consulates in Latin American countries, as well as at the Consulate General of Spain in Miami. In the specific case of Argentina, the five general consulates in the country account for 40% of the requests, and if those received by the Consulate General in Havana are added, the figure rises to 53%. This puts requests on the Island at 13% of the total, that is, 39,145 up to that date.
The Council of Ministers has authorized this Tuesday, as the Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, had already announced in February, to extend by one year the period to exercise the right to opt for Spanish nationality included in the eighth additional provision of the Law of Democratic Memory, which gave two years.
In all consular offices “there are a number of applicants who will hardly be able to be summoned and assisted before the end of the two-year period provided”
According to the Foreign Affairs Department, headed by José Manuel Albares, in all consular offices “there are a number of applicants who will be unlikely to be summoned and assisted before the end of the two-year period provided for” by law.
For this reason, the Government has decided to extend the deadline by one year “so that all requests for appointments already submitted and pending date allocation can be attended to, as well as all requests that are submitted and cannot be attended to in the first two years of application initially provided for in the law,” the Foreign Ministry justified.
Specifically, the aforementioned additional provision of the Law on Democratic Memory supports the possibility of applying for Spanish nationality for those born outside Spain to a father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, who were originally Spanish, and who, as a result of having suffered exile for political, ideological or belief reasons or for reasons of sexual orientation and identity, have lost or renounced Spanish nationality.
This also includes sons and daughters born abroad to Spanish women who lost their nationality by marrying foreigners before the 1978 Constitution came into force, as well as the adult sons and daughters of Spaniards whose nationality of origin was recognised by virtue of the Historical Memory Law of 2007.
