National
Spanish Government announces plans to promote religious freedom
By h.b.
May 8, 2008 - 8:43 AM

The Deputy Prime Minister, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, met yesterday afternoon with the Constitutional Commission of Congress to explain the basic lines of the Government in the area of Constitutional reform over the next four years.
The Government wants to reform the electoral law, to make Spain declared officially as a lay state, and wants to see changes in the funding of the regions, with a revision of the abortion laws and the creation of a new plan for human rights, the latter two by the end of this year.

De la Vega described the plans as vanguard and emphasised the Government’s wishes for consensus and dialogue.
The PP spokesman for the opposition on the Commission, Federico Trillo, interrupted the Deputy Prime Minister on several occasions and threw his hands into the air when she mentioned the Government’s plans for a law of religious freedom.
De la Vega said such a law was needed to ‘reflect the new circumstances and religious pluralism which characterises present day Spain’. The Government considers that the Spanish constitution already promotes the idea of a lay state.

For the PP however, such a law means the Government is ‘acting against a faith, the Catholic one’, which Trillo described as that of the majority of Spaniards and his own. He failed to mention that he is an open member of the Opus Dei organisation.

Meanwhile, the Spanish government has said that the new immigration law will not be changed, despite the proposals form the EU which wants to see paperless immigrants being able to be held in custody for 18 months while their deportation orders are being prepared.

The EU wants to harmonize the repatriation procedure, but the Spanish head of immigration, Marta Rodríguez, said in Toledo yesterday that the Spanish law will not have to be modified to comply with the new EU directive.