Feijóo denounces “arbitrariness” in naturalizations, and the CGCEE calls for the “legitimate right” to nationality not to be questioned

Eduardo González The president of the People's Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, stated this Thursday that his party “is not against a grandchild who proves kinship being able to obtain Spanish nationality,” but denounced that “there is a great deal of arbitrariness” in the application of the “Grandchildren Law.” For its part, the General Council of Spanish Citizenship Abroad (CGCEE) has demanded that the “legitimate right” to nationality “obtained under a current law” not be questioned and has flatly rejected Vox's proposal to abolish postal voting. “We are not against a grandchild who can prove their relationship obtaining Spanish nationality. What we are against is this being done surreptitiously and underhandedly, because we have no information whatsoever,” Feijóo warned during his participation in the UIMP courses at the Magdalena Palace in Santander. According to the PP leader, “there is a great deal of arbitrariness, no security, no transparency, and very few guarantees” in the granting of nationality through the Democratic Memory Law (“Grandchildren Law”), under which “the number of applications is 2.6 million.” This figure, he stated, “represents an enormous impact from the perspective of public services and the Spanish Welfare State” because the granting of nationality entitles one to a health card, an education voucher, and a non-contributory pension; in short, to “the rights that Spaniards who have contributed to the system and worked in our country for many decades have.” “Spain is not prepared to handle an increase of eight million people in just seven years. It is time to change immigration policy with all the necessary guarantees and without arbitrary actions,” he added, referring to naturalizations and the current process of regularizing immigrants. Last Monday, Alberto Núñez Feijóo told EsRadio that the “Grandchildren Law” is an “electoral ploy” implemented by the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, to grant voting rights to 2.5 million people in a very short period of time. “There is a clear interest in gaining new voters because the numbers don't add up with the current ones,” he denounced. For her part, the President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, also warned on Monday that “every consul and every official who grants citizenship to someone who doesn't deserve it must know that they would also be doing something illegal, and that is our warning.” In response to these statements, the Association of Diplomats of Spain (ADE) asserted that “public officials in Spain are fully aware that it is their obligation to comply with the law.” Before the People's Party (PP), the first objection to the “Grandchildren Law” was raised by Vox, whose parliamentary group's secretary general in Congress, José María Figaredo, declared this week that this law constitutes a “slow-motion coup d'état” and demanded that Spaniards residing abroad be denied the right to vote by mail, so that they can only vote in person at consulates or embassies. The General Council of Spanish Citizens Abroad (CGCEE) The CGCEE has expressed, in a statement, its “firm rejection of any proposal that limits or hinders the exercise of the right to vote for Spanish citizens residing abroad” and has warned that Vox’s proposal “would, in practice, deprive thousands of citizens who live far from consulates and embassies of this right.” In this regard, it recalled that the Spanish Constitution expressly recognizes in Article 68.5 that “the law shall recognize and the State shall facilitate the exercise of the right to vote for Spaniards who are outside the territory of Spain,” and therefore any measure that hinders this right would be “contrary to the spirit of this constitutional mandate.” Furthermore, the CGCEE has also expressed its concern about the growing questioning of access to Spanish nationality for descendants of Spaniards, as recognized in the eighth additional provision of the Law of Democratic Memory. “Nationality obtained under a current law is a fully legitimate right and must be respected without reservation,” the Council warns. “Spaniards who have acquired their nationality in accordance with legally established procedures enjoy the same rights and obligations as any other Spanish citizen, and their status cannot be questioned nor can the exercise of the rights inherent to it be limited,” it adds. In statements made on the TVE program ‘Mañaneros 360’, Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares stated this Wednesday that “what the People’s Party and Mr. Feijóo are doing is a betrayal of the Spanish people.” “What the People’s Party wants is for three and a half million Spaniards to be unable to vote,” insisted the minister, who warned that “the vast majority of those Spaniards currently residing abroad are Spanish by birth.” He also denounced the “enormous hypocrisy” of Feijóo and the People’s Party because “this law was precisely what they included in their 2023 electoral platform.” Specifically, the electoral program for the July 23, 2023 elections proposed guaranteeing the right to Spanish nationality for descendants of Spaniards through a "reformed Law on Access to Nationality for Grandchildren" and by "strengthening the Consulates responsible for processing nationality applications." Feijóo also requested that the right to nationality not be limited to exiled Spaniards, but be extended to other cases in order to avoid "ideologizing" the process. That same Wednesday, the PP spokesperson in Congress, Ester Muñoz, asserted that her party "has always defended the right of all those Spaniards who had to leave Spain due to exile to have their descendants recover Spanish nationality." The Democratic Memory Law, which replaces the Historical Memory Law of 2007, has been in force since October 2022 after being approved by the Congress of Deputies and the Senate at the proposal of Pedro Sánchez's government, with votes against it from, among others, the People's Party (PP) and Vox. The law grants Spanish nationality to "those born outside of Spain to a father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, who were originally Spanish, and who, as a consequence of having suffered exile for political, ideological, or religious reasons, or due to their sexual orientation or gender identity, have lost or renounced their Spanish nationality." The granting of nationality is included in the eighth additional provision of the "Grandchildren Law." Despite this, the more than 70 amendments presented at the time by the PP to the law did not include any mention of this provision.

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