14ymedio, Madrid, 4 July 2023 — A group of Cubans who want to take advantage of the new “law of grandchildren” of Spain to obtain that country’s nationality has called for a peaceful protest for this Wednesday, July 5 at 9:30 am in front of the population service office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on H Street between 5th and Calzada, in Havana’s El Vedado neighborhood.
The problem, they explain to this newspaper, is that the process of legalizing the documents, which previously took a month, now takes up to almost four months. “The appointments are through the Ticket application, and there are 2,000 people or more on the waiting list to get an appointment for legalization,” they complain.
According to details, each stage of the process now takes between 20 days and a month: “pending” one month; “accepted at reception” between 20 and 30 days; “legalization” 20 days; “signed” 5 days; and “delivered” between 20 and 30 days.
In order for the process to be shortened, they propose two measures to the ministry: to create “temporary offices for the legalization of documents in the capitals of the provinces,” so that “there is less volume of documents in Havana,” and hiring more staff. “We just want to have our documentation ready in the fastest possible time and be Spanish; it is our right,” they say in an email sent to the 14ymedio Editorial Office.
The group has also created a Telegram channel to disseminate the call, signed by the Ombudsman’s Office of the Community of Spanish Descendants.
Cuba is the country where the most people have obtained Spanish nationality under the new Law of Democratic Memory, which offers the option of obtaining it to a wide range of descendants of Spaniards.
As of January 31, according to the latest data released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain, 24,729 applications had been submitted at the 179 consular offices around the world, most of them in Latin America. Cuba, Argentina and Mexico, in this order, totaled 14,610 applications received and 4,774 registered nationalities.
Of this total, half, 12,862, have already been approved while 6,653 have been registered in the Civil Registry.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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