Partners pressure Sánchez: they want changes to the official secrets law to endorse it.
The law that the Spanish government approved in the summer is now beginning its process in Congress with the goal of approval by the end of the year.
BarcelonaAfter the Spanish government made this summer The last step for the Official Secrets Act to see the light of day –approved by the Council of Ministers in July– now has to go through the entire parliamentary process. And it doesn't look like it will be smooth sailing. The investiture partners do not fully support the law that must replace the Francoist law which keeps key documents from the State's history classified. In fact, most are critical of the central part of the law: the declassification period for documents. Regarding the preliminary draft from three years ago, the Spanish government has reduced this period by five years for the most restricted subjects, but this is not enough for the majority of members, who demand that these periods be shorter. The groups have until this Wednesday, September 17, to present their amendments.
The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, predicted this summer that the law could be approved by the end of this year and that, therefore, the documents of the Civil War, Franco's regime and also 23-F They could be automatically declassified when the law came into force (one year after its approval). Bolaños said this because of the deadlines the Spanish government had established for automatically declassifying materials classified as "top secret": 45 years, with a single 15-year extension option, which would lead to these documents being kept for a maximum of 60 years. The deadlines for declassifying the other three categories were as follows: for materials classified as "secret," the period would be 35 years, extendable to 10 years; for "confidential" matters, between 7 and 9 years; and for "restricted" matters, the period would be between 4 and 5 years.
The PNV (Spanish Nationalist Party) is the group that had unsuccessfully presented this law several times in Congress until the Spanish executive adopted it as a bill. The Jeltzales (National Liberation Party) already warned in the summer that they were not entirely convinced by the content and that they would demand that Pedro Sánchez's government reduce the declassification deadlines. Sources within the party told ARA that there are aspects "that can be improved" and that they will present amendments. However, they have not yet specified their content. However, the group now led by Maribel Vaquero in Congress had previously advocated for shorter declassification periods, setting them at 25 years for matters classified as secret—with a possible 10-year extension—and 10 years for classified documents.
The law also fails to convince the Spanish government's minority partner, Sumar, which has already called for changes to also reduce these deadlines so that the law is "in line with neighboring countries," although it has not yet specified its proposal. Along the same lines, Podemos advocated, for example, that the 45-year deadline be reduced to 20. This request is also being made by Esquerra, which considers the deadlines to be "too long," especially in the first two categories—top secret and secret. In this regard, sources from the parliamentary group in Madrid point out that in other countries the deadlines are shorter, citing Italy and the United Kingdom as examples. Like Esquerra, EH Bildu will also present amendments along the same lines because the party believes that it is not enough to automatically declassify documents up to the 1981 coup attempt, but that it must go further and extend to the period of the GAL. Juntos, for its part, has yet to specify whether it will present amendments.
Review the sanctions
Within the Spanish government, Sumar also calls for changes to the sanctioning portion of the law. The text incorporates penalties for revealing classified information, ranging from prison sentences to an administrative sanctioning regime with fines ranging from €30,000 to €2.5 million, depending on the severity of the revelations. Yolanda Díaz's party calls for reducing the sanctions, as does Esquerra, which advocates for considering "administrative sanctions" and eliminating or at least reducing the current criminal penalty in Article 598 of the Penal Code, which provides for between one and four years in prison. The Republicans believe that the incorporation of an administrative sanctioning regime should render any criminal sanction inapplicable.
In addition, Sumar also made other requests, such as not classifying information that could be "relevant" in a judicial process prosecuting conduct against human dignity as classified. ERC also plans to request that regional authorities competent in matters of security or international relations be able to request the classification of documents. The law only grants the Council of Ministers the power to classify top-secret and classified information. In the case of confidential and restricted matters, other authorities, such as the director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), the Secretary of Penitentiary Institutions, or the Chief of the Defense Staff, can do so.
