Congress to resume debate on granting nationality to Sahrawis next week, this time with the support of the PSOE

Eduardo González The plenary session of the Congress will again address, next Thursday, September 10, the proposed law to grant Spanish nationality to Sahrawis born before 1976. This initiative had been rejected by the PSOE in the two previous parliamentary votes and is now opposed by the People's Party (PP) and Vox, following a compromise agreement reached by the Socialists with their coalition partner, Sumar. On June 30, Congress approved a report from the Justice Committee on the proposed law "on granting Spanish nationality to Sahrawis born under Spanish administration." This outcome was made possible by a rapprochement between Sumar and the PSOE, which allowed the Socialists to cease blocking the proposal. In the vote, Junts abstained, and the PP (which until now had supported granting nationality to the Sahrawi people) and Vox voted against it, but their votes were not enough to stop the process. Once this preliminary stage was completed, Sumar took the initiative to the Justice Committee of Congress, which issued its opinion in mid-July. The period for submitting amendments and dissenting opinions in plenary session began on July 24, the Justice Committee's opinion was published on August 3 in the Official Gazette of the Cortes Generales (Spanish Parliament), and the vote on the opinion will take place on September 10. Following the approval of the committee's report, Deputy Tesh Sidi, from the Sumar party (and of Sahrawi origin), explained that this legislation could benefit up to 350,000 people, including the 50,000 Sahrawis (and their descendants) who resided in the former Spanish province before the 1976 Moroccan occupation and the 300,000 Sahrawi immigrants currently living in Spain. Under the new law, individuals who can prove two years of residency in Spain could apply for citizenship, as is the case for people from Latin America, Sephardic Jews, or other former Spanish territories. The legislation had been promoted by Sumar, but the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) had voted against it twice in Congress (February 2023 and February 2025). To justify their position, the Socialists had relied on mere legal technicalities. Specifically, they rejected the legal and technical procedure of Sumar's proposal, arguing that the Polisario Front, a private entity not recognized by Morocco, should not be the one to certify the documentation necessary for citizenship. Furthermore, they opposed granting citizenship by naturalization. The Justice Committee debated the report on the text for the first time on April 28, amidst the controversy surrounding the exclusion of Sahrawis from the extraordinary regularization of immigrants due to their stateless status. However, after that meeting, the text remained shelved for several months. Therefore, Sumar, the main driving force behind the initiative, began a negotiation process with the PSOE and other progressive parties to advance a series of compromise amendments that would integrate the various proposals presented. Furthermore, the proposal also received a boost from an unexpected source: last Wednesday, June 24, Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares assured the plenary session of the Lower House that he is “fully in favor of granting Spanish nationality to Sahrawis born under Spanish administration.” “There is no obstacle, and I, as Spain’s Foreign Minister, am in favor of it,” he insisted in response to a question from MP Francesc-Marc Álvaro Vidal, of the Republican Parliamentary Group.

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