Recent data shows that in 2023 more than 180,000 descendants have applied for Spanish citizenship, protected by the Law of Democratic Memory (LMD).
According to a report by 20 Minutos, last year, the first year of the so-called “grandchildren law”, 182,400 people applied for Spanish citizenship.
This law, valid from October 2022 to October 2024, allows descendants of Spaniards exiled after the Civil War and during the dictatorship to opt for a Spanish passport.
Of the total applications submitted last year, 51% (91,996) have already been approved and two thirds of these descendants of Spaniards (57,585) are registered in the consulates of their country of birth and residence, according to the Diplomat information office.
The Democratic Memory Act, also known as the “Grandchildren Act”, continues the process initiated by the Historical Memory Act between 2009 and 2011. At that time, up to 500,000 citizenship applications were registered, but many remained unresolved, emphasizes the aforementioned medium.
Now descendants who were underage in 2011 and whose siblings acquired citizenship can also apply for citizenship, as can Spanish women who lost their citizenship by marrying a foreigner. According to descendant associations, an estimated 300,000 people could benefit from this second procedure.
SPANISH NATIONALITY: LMD CUBA
According to the information provided, the majority of those born to Spanish parents or grandparents live in Latin America (94.9%), with Cuba, Argentina and Mexico being the countries with the highest number of such residents. The remainder (5.1%) is distributed in other parts of the world, mainly France, the United States and Morocco.
According to another Spanish media report, the Spanish consulate in Havana approved the largest number of citizenship applications, around 15,000, a year after the implementation of the Democratic Memory Law. This is followed by the consulate in Mexico, where more than 8,500 applications were approved.
The most worrying problem in Cuba right now is the delay in the delivery of credentials to access the appointment system.
According to several users on social networks, this week they received the login details for the month of August for the first time, which means a delay of five months.