National
Spanish constitutional commission passes Historical Memory Law
By m.p
Oct 17, 2007 - 11:24 PM

The bill for the Historical Memory Law has been passed by the constitutional commission of Congress with the votes of the governing Socialist Party, the PNV Basque Nationalists, the left-green grouping IU-CV, the centre right Catalan nationalist alliance CiU, and the Canary Islands regionalist party, Coalición Canaria.

It now goes to a full meeting of Congress for approval and then on to the Senate, which will probably take place at the end of this month.

It’s been a controversial process from the start, with several modifications from the original text, and six more changes agreed at Wednesday’s debate, which include extending the possibility of Spanish nationality to the grandchildren of those who were exiled during the Civil War.

El Mundo says members of international brigades also get that right under the changes.

The opposition Partido Popular supported seven of the amendments, amongst them a proposal from CiU to ‘depolitisise’ the Valle de los Caídos – the Valley of the Fallen – in El Escorial, Madrid province.

A massive memorial, topped with a 150 metre high cross, visible from 40 kms, was built there between 1940 and 1958 on the orders of General Francisco Franco in memory of those who died in the Spanish Civil War. It is said that Republican prisoners were forced to carry out the work.

The amendment prohibits any political events taking place at the Valle de los Caídos, either connected to the Civil War, to those who took part in it, or to the Franco regime, with an instruction to the foundation which manages the Valley of the Fallen to work towards society’s desire for reconciliation and spreading knowledge about that period in Spanish history. The aim is that the monument will now honour all those who died during the Spanish Civil War, without any concern for any political affiliation.

The PP general secretary, Ángel Acebes, was quoted by El Mundo, however, as saying that the new law was the culmination of a legislature which wanted to ‘divide rather than unite the people of Spain.’