Havana/Before a frantic crowd spread over several rows, the custodian at the Spanish Consulate in Havana kept repeating this Wednesday, the last day to apply for Spanish nationality through the Democratic Memory Law (LMD). “For the nationality, if you don’t do it today, the end of everything,” he warned, shaking his palms in a decisive gesture.
The man patiently explained to those who were confused that they should consult, on the Embassy’s website, the section corresponding to the rule to make the request. “Forget that if your brother, that this, that that,” he warned them. Either they followed the instructions, “or they won’t be able to do it.” The questions showed how, almost three years after the law came into force, and hours before the deadline to accept applications, there are still doubts among Cubans.
One of the issues that concerned those who asked was related to the waiting time before being called to review the documents and continue with the process once the request was made and the file number had been received by email. As sources from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs reminded this newspaper, processing all of them “can take years.”
As sources from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs reminded this newspaper, processing all of them “can take years.”
Published in October 2022the LMD offered, in principle, the possibility of obtaining Spanish nationality to the descendants of Spaniards exiled by the Civil War and the Franco regime, to those born to Spanish women who had lost their nationality by marrying foreigners before the entry into force of the 1978 Constitution, and to the adult children of those who acquired it with the previous law on grandchildren – the Law of Historical Memory of 2007 – and who had been excluded from it precisely because they were more than 18 years.
However, the standard instructionpublished a few days later in order to clarify, precisely, “possible doubts that may arise to those in charge of the Spanish Civil Registry Offices regarding the scope and interpretation of the scope of application of the aforementioned eighth additional provision”, interpreted that not only the descendants of exiles from the civil war could benefit from it, but also all those “born outside Spain of parents or grandparents originally Spanish.” This assumption has caused the volume of requests to be enormous, especially from Cuba, the second country in the number of requests behind Argentina.
As reported to 14ymedio the Foreign sourcesUntil the beginning of this October there were nearly 400,000 requests for the LMD in Havana, and each day they estimated they were receiving between 5,000 and 6,000 more, so they expected that 500,000 would be reached, and even exceeded.
/ 14ymedio
Of all the countries, as of July 31, 876,321 people had made the request, of which 414,652 have already had it approved and 237,145 have obtained a passport.
“We are not interested in the problems you have, what interests us is that you enter the system before the deadline expires,” the custodian repeated to those waiting in a line that was exclusively for answering questions.
In another line, people came and went, running, trying to solve a necessary copy, or some forgotten document.
Many Cubans have criticized the “chaos” they have found in front of the Spanish diplomatic headquarters due to the LMD procedures. Asked about this during an official visit to Chile and Argentina, the Spanish Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, revealed that in Havana there had been difficulties in streamlining the process. “We have tried to set up mobile offices and it is complicated,” said Torres in specific reference to Cuba and Venezuela.
In the line, this Wednesday, a Havana resident who was waiting to enter to legalize and deliver documents for several relatives, denied the extreme: “This is the only well-ordered line in all of Cuba.”
/ 14ymedio
