<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The Council of Ministers has approved the Royal Decree creating the Consulate General of Spain in Camagüey, Cuba. The new office, which will begin operating twenty years after the Government's decision to open a new Consulate in Cuba, will help alleviate the workload of the Consulate in Havana, which is particularly burdened by the requirements of the Democratic Memory Law regarding the acquisition of Spanish nationality and by the increase in Spanish tourism to the island.</strong></h4> According to the Royal Decree, signed on December 26 and published this Tuesday, December 30, in the Official State Gazette (BOE), in recent years “various factors have converged that have led to the decision to create the Consulate General of Spain in Camagüey.” “On the one hand,” the government explains, “there has been a significant increase in the number of Spanish citizens residing in Cuba, largely as a result of changes in the regulations regarding the acquisition of Spanish nationality.” Specifically, the number of people registered at the Spanish Consulate General in Havana has doubled in just over ten years, reaching nearly 185,000 in December 2025. To this must be added the figures for Spanish citizens visiting Cuba and Cuban citizens traveling to Spain. “In this regard, the increase in the number of visas processed by the Spanish Consulate General in Havana stands out, having almost tripled in the last ten years,” the government explains. From a consular perspective, the main objective is for this new Consulate General to improve services for the Spanish community in the central and eastern regions of the country. Havana is located near the western tip of Cuba, while the Spanish community is scattered throughout the island, which has a limited communications and transportation network. This is further compounded by the significant presence of Spanish tourism in the eastern part of the country. “In this sense, its strategic location in the center of the island and in a province with a high concentration of Spanish residents makes the city of Camagüey an optimal choice for a second Spanish Consulate General in Cuba,” the government explains. Another objective, related to the previous one, is to improve services for Spanish residents and visitors to the island. The new Consulate General will complement the work and capabilities of the Consulate General in Havana, which is dealing with a growing number of registered individuals and an increasing demand for visas, among other consular services. The jurisdiction of the Consulate General in Camagüey will cover the eastern half of the island: from the province of Ciego de Ávila to that of Guantánamo, both inclusive, passing through Camagüey, Las Tunas, Holguín, Granma and Santiago de Cuba. <h5><strong>Twenty years later</strong></h5> The Royal Decree also recalls that the Council of Ministers Agreement of September 1, 2006, which approved measures to strengthen the State's foreign policy, "already foresaw the opening of a new Consular Office in Cuba." Indeed, Spain expressed its desire in 2006 to open a new Consulate General in the eastern part of the island, specifically in Santiago de Cuba, and after several years of negotiations, the Castro regime agreed in May 2017 that the new Consulate would open the following year. However, they later changed their minds. In 2019, the Spanish Government proposed that the opening of the second Consulate General take place in a town located more centrally on the island, taking into account the areas where the Spanish community is distributed. Apparently, Spain proposed up to three locations in Camagüey to the Cuban Government. In August 2022, Spanish official sources admitted that the opening was "pending approval from the Cuban authorities." In mid-2023, the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed the news outlet Martí Noticias, through the Transparency Portal, that the Cuban authorities had still not given the green light to the opening of the Spanish Consulate General in Camagüey. The 2024 Consular Report, presented last June by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, to the Council of Ministers for its approval, already anticipated the opening of new Consulates General in the United Kingdom, China, Cuba (specifically in Camagüey), and India (Bangalore). <h5><strong>Bangalore</strong></h5> The Council of Ministers has just approved the opening of the Spanish Consulate General in Bangalore. The reason for this opening is to address the increase in bilateral relations and exchanges between India and Spain, which warrants an increased Spanish consular presence in India, since, Currently, there is only one Consulate General in Mumbai, in addition to the consular section of the Embassy in New Delhi. According to the Government, the opening of the Consulate General in Bangalore will improve services for the Spanish community, both residents and visitors, in the southern region of the country and will result in more effective and efficient consular services, complementing the efforts of the consular services in New Delhi and Mumbai. Furthermore, the Consulate General in Bangalore will strengthen visa issuance capacity, leading to an increase in tourism and economic exchanges between the two countries. The new consulate's jurisdiction will extend to the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and the territory of Puducherry.
