Spanish Congress approves the Historical Memory Law

Spanish Congress approves the Historical Memory Law
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By m.p. - Oct 31, 2007 - 10:52 PM

Politicians applauding in Congress after the Historical Memory bill was approved on Wednesday. Photo – EFE.

The controversial bill now goes to the Senate for debate

The controversial bill for the Historical Memory Law has been passed by the lower house of the Spanish parliament, with the debate in Congress on Wednesday making only one major change to the text approved by the constitutional commission of Congress on 17th October.

The last minute amendment was made on legislation to remove all symbols and statues of the Franco regime.
It was presented by the Catalan party, CiU, and exempts churches from complying with the requirement, if there are legal artistic or religious reasons for doing so. The proposal was passed with the support of the governing Socialists, the PNV Basque Nationalists, CiU itself, and the Canaries regionalist party, Coalición Canaria.

As expected, the opposition Partido Popular voted against the bill, as did the Catalan Republicans, ERC.
The PP spokesman, Eduardo Zaplana, accused the government of weakening the political consensus of the Transition to Democracy, and using ‘the Civil War as an argument for political propaganda.’

The PP did, however, support the seven amendments to the original text which they supported at the previous vote in the constitutional commission. They include ‘depoliticising’ the ‘Valle de los Caídos’ – ‘the Valley of the Fallen’ in El Escorial, together with monetary aid to the victims of the Civil War and of the Franco regime.

Other amendments brought in include the right to Spanish nationality for the grandchildren of those were exiled by the War or the Franco regime, and declaring as illegitimate laws and court rulings from Franco’s time.

In addition, the government is to provide a map of mass graves, for those who want to exhume their relatives’ remains.

The Deputy Prime Minister, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, opened the debate saying the essence of the new law is recognising and widening the rights of the victims of both the Civil War and the Franco regime, and allowing each individual to recover their memories, and those of their families. She said there is not one single line of the law which cannot be supported by ‘any democrat.’

The bill now goes to the Senate for debate in the upper chamber.

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