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In an exclusive interview, the Consul General of Spain in Mexico, Manuel Hernández Ruigómez, tells us about the consular work of the last year, the performance after the pandemic and the challenges for the year 2024.
The consulate of Spain in Mexico is the third consulate in terms of service abroad in terms of consular procedures after that of Buenos Aires, which is number one, followed by Havana, in Cuba. Mexico is followed by Caracas, in Venezuela, data that can give us a dimension of the activity at the Mexican headquarters.
Currently, 150,000 Spaniards with first and last names are registered at the Consulate of Mexico City, that is, with specific data, according to the consul. It is thought that there must be 30% or 40% more in the consular demarcation that are unregistered.
Hernández Ruigómez states: “If we unite the other two consulates in Mexico, which are Monterrey and Guadalajara, we exceed 200,000 Spaniards registered in Mexico.”
The demarcation goes from the north of the province of San Luis Potosí to the south of the province of Chiapas, border with Guatemala. Monterrey covers the northern part bordering the United States and Guadalajara, which are Zacatecas, Aguascalientes and Jalisco, but the greatest attention in number is the consulate in Mexico City.
Consul Hernández tells us that, during the pandemic, the number of services dropped to about half of normal and that after Covid, work at the consulate has been different.
A factor that has generated more consular work has been the fact that Spain approved the 2022 Democratic Memory Law, which grants nationality for three years to the grandchildren of Spaniards, born in Spain. This is a law that will be valid until October 2025. During this period, those interested in obtaining Spanish nationality and who are grandchildren of Spaniards will be able to go to the consulate to present their papers, basically the birth certificates. of parents and grandparents. This has significantly increased consular work.
“When I arrived in Mexico,” mentions the consul, “we had 134,000 Spaniards registered, now there are 20,000 more, and probably because of the projection we make of figures, when this law ends, which is when I leave Mexico, there will surely be registered around 300,000 Spaniards, which would already be a very significant figure, the equivalent of an average Spanish city.”
When asked what the challenge of consular work is for next year 2024, the consul answers: “The first challenge is the lack of personnel, we have requested the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Madrid to reinforce personnel, they have reinforced us with thirteen people, but it is not enough.
“To deal with the avalanche of people who are asking for nationality, we are doing 150 nationalities a day, it is an impressive workload,” he highlights.
“And the second challenge is the premises, the space, we have outgrown it, we have had to rent five offices outside of here, in Polanco, we have also asked the ministry for authorization to be able to rent or buy another new headquarters, whatever they decide, We are looking for the best option here in Polanco,” says the consul.
“When the validity of Law 2022 ends, work will increase exponentially, because we will have more Spaniards to serve,” he assures.
So, how does the consulate’s work close in 2023? “With a substantial increase in passport processing, today we do almost double what we did in 2022 and in the management of visas generally for studies as well, as well as registration of registration, that is, the Spaniards who reside in this consular demarcation,” Explain.
“Every year at the beginning of the year, pensioners who reside in Mexico need a certificate of life, we must send it to the social security authorities of Spain and it is confirmed that they are still alive and that they can continue collecting the pension for at least current year,” he details.
Another of our activities is the organization of elections. “This 2023 we have organized two electoral processes, one for the regional elections that were held on May 28 and the other for the general elections that were held on July 23, 2023,” recalls the consul.
“The regulations have changed, the law changed, before the voter had to wait for the ballots to arrive from the political parties that were presented in their province, here each Spaniard needs to say in which province they vote when they register on the electoral roll and From the universe of voters that we have, for example, the autonomous communities were thirteen autonomous communities, since we organize the polls,” says the consul.
“Now we receive the ballots from each province, so Spaniards no longer have to wait for the ballots to arrive by normal mail, before they arrived late or did not arrive at all, now we have the ballots, the voting centers organize it in the Spanish hospital so that they have more comfort, the polls are opened for six days,” says Manuel Hernández Ruigómez.
Next year will also be full of work due to new elections: “In 2024 we are going to have three elections, the Galician ones, the Basque ones and those of the European Parliament, it is not yet known if the Basque and Galician elections will be on the same day because the previous ones They organized them together, but, in any case, they will be held at the Spanish hospital and those on the electoral roll are only those of legal age.”
Regarding Hurricane Otis, the consul refers to the fact that there were Spaniards affected in Acapulco, but “the honorary consul who is the Director of the El Cano Hotel did an excellent job in terms of locating Spaniards in the port.”
The Consul General of Spain in Mexico closes the interview by expressing that, with his work, he seeks to please the Spanish colony in Mexico when he comes to carry out consular work. And he adds that “Mexico is a fascinating country, a land of wonderful people and that he perceives few differences between a Mexican and a Spaniard and considers that this is a sign of three hundred years of life together.”