Junts per Catalunya has questioned the demographic implications for Catalonia of Spain's Democratic Memory Law and the extraordinary regularisation of migrants, according to reporting by Diari ARA. The party's position overlaps in part with arguments made by the PP and Vox, which have linked the measures to possible changes in the electoral roll and pressure on public services.

For residents, the distinction between the two policies is significant. The regularisation process grants residence and work permits to eligible people already in Spain, but does not itself grant voting rights. The Democratic Memory Law provides a route to Spanish nationality for certain descendants of people who went into exile during the Franco period.

Nationality route for descendants of Spanish exiles

Under the eighth additional provision of Law 20/2022 on Democratic Memory, people born outside Spain may opt for Spanish nationality if their parent or grandparent was originally Spanish and lost or renounced that nationality after going into exile for political, ideological, religious, sexual-orientation or gender-identity reasons.

The Council of Ministers approved a third-year extension to the original two-year application period on 9 July, according to a Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration notice.

“These administrative procedures are not easy, in the sense that it is a complex process,” Ángel Víctor Torres, the Minister for Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, said when the extension was announced.

More than half a million nationality applications approved

Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory figures reported by El País show the scale of applications made under the law. By 31 March, 2.4 million people had booked consular appointments, 1.2 million had formally submitted an application and 544,722 had been approved.

  • 306,000 of the approved applicants had been entered in the civil register.
  • Argentine consulates accounted for nearly 40% of applications, the largest share reported.
  • Cuban consulates had the second-highest number of requests.

The Ministry's notice sets out the nationality criteria and the extension approved under Law 20/2022. The supplied reporting does not set out a specific Junts policy proposal or timetable linked to its concerns about Catalonia's demographic impact.

Primary sources: inclusion.gob.es, lamoncloa.gob.es, lamoncloa.gob.es, inclusion.gob.es. Reported by Source Text Link, Natalia Junquera, en.wikipedia.org, delcantochambers.com, El País, Bruno, france24.com, euronews.com, cidob.org, Mario Pérez Galindo, VerificaRTVE, Almudena Iglesias, al-monitor.com, Pepe Cuna, Lucía Sánchez Villegas, Diari ARA.