The Diplomat
The Council of Ministers yesterday approved the National Plan for the Implementation of the European Strategy for Combating Antisemitism and Promoting Jewish Life in Europe, which adopts the latest EU decisions in this area and will serve as a framework for action for the period 2023-2030.
This plan, proposed by the Ministry of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Democratic Memory, implements in Spain the strategy approved by the member countries of the European Union in October 2021 to respond, on the one hand, to the concern about the persistence of anti-Semitic discourses, ideologies and attitudes, amplified by social networks and, on the other hand, to the repetition of serious acts against life, places of worship, cemeteries and property of Jewish people and communities.
According to the Ministry of the Presidency, Spain has been working in this field for years, so that the most relevant contents of the European Strategy “are already part of its legal, administrative and social system”. However, it admitted, “the Community initiative has been an opportunity to propose new developments and to go further in the objectives of the fight against hate speech and, specifically, against anti-Semitism”.
Different entities and organizations have participated in the elaboration of the plan, such as the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE), in collaboration with the General Subdirectorate of Religious Freedom, integrated in the Ministry of the Presidency.
With this plan, the Government intends to give a more forceful response to the persistence and increase of this phenomenon, to systematize and improve the resources and measures to fight anti-Semitism and to favor the conditions for Jewish individuals and communities to live in accordance with their beliefs and traditions, within the framework of our legal system. The lines of action that form the backbone of the plan correspond to those identified in the European Strategy: the prevention and fight against all forms of anti-Semitism, hate speech, online anti-Semitism and discrimination; the promotion of conditions for the exercise of the right of Jewish individuals and communities to live in accordance with their beliefs and traditions; and pedagogy, research and remembrance. It also includes lines of action related to Jewish life and the memory of the Holocaust, especially its denial, distortion or trivialization.
In a press release, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain yesterday expressed its satisfaction with the adoption of the plan, which “includes many of the FCJE’s proposals and responds to the European strategy approved by the European Parliament and the European Commission in October 2021, as a result of concern about the persistence of hate speech and anti-Semitic attitudes within the Union”.
Therefore, the FCJE “thanks the Government of Spain for its commitment in the fight for the eradication of anti-Semitism and for the promotion of Jewish life in Spain.” “We subscribe to the words of the Minister of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Democratic Memory, Félix Bolaños, who in announcing the Plan has assured that anti-Semitism ‘is contrary to constitutional values and the values of the European Union itself'”, it concluded.
