“Another milestone of the PP-Vox government pact.” This is how the spokespersons for both parties presented this Monday in the Cortes of Aragon the first step taken to repeal the community’s Democratic Memory Law, approved in 2018. The opposition and memorial associations harshly criticize their decision, which they believe goes against the democratic values, and they denounce that 20-N has just materialized, the date on which the dictator Francisco Franco died 48 years ago.
For government partners, the current Democratic Memory Law “imposes an official narrative” and a “partisan” and “sectarian” vision of history that only shows consideration for the victims of one side, considers those of the other as executioners and reopens old wounds
According to the popular spokesperson, Fernando Ledesma, the forecast is that the reform will be taken into consideration in the next ordinary plenary session of the Cortes, set for November 30, and will be processed as a single reading and without debate. If so, the law could be officially repealed throughout the month of February during the first ordinary plenary session of 2024.
Regarding the date chosen for the announcement, which has raised blisters in some sectors, the spokespersons assured that it was a matter of “chance.” “It does not have any perversion or evil, it is a question of deadlines,” said the popular one, arguing that today the registration deadline for the initiatives to be discussed in that ordinary plenary session ended.
In this sense, he regretted the existence of “many nostalgic people who live from 20-N, but on both sides,” and accused the left of being more busy “building a wall than in seeking harmony.”
For his part, the Vox spokesperson, Santiago Morón, showed his “great satisfaction” at being able to repeal a law that he called “sectarian and liberticidal” and that, in his opinion, “aims to rewrite history and create an official story, something typical of totalitarian regimes.”
When the Cortes, in which PP and Vox have an absolute majority, approve this proposal, the democratic memory routes, the research center, the registry of entities, the educational activities related to this topic or the institutional web portal of the Government of Aragón on democratic memory.
What will continue, they say, are the searches in the graves, although they did not specify if there will be financial aid. “This will not prevent public administrations from facilitating citizens and associations in the search, exhumation, documentation and honoring of victims of war or repression on both sides,” they explained.
In principle, this will be included in the strategic plan for Democratic Memory that is being prepared by the Ministry of the Presidency and that, in the absence of more details, will be presented in the coming days, “(The plan) will recover the positive initiatives that said law may have, but of all the victims,” Ledesma added.
From left-wing groups, today was a concatenation of statements harshly criticizing the government’s new measure. The socialist spokesperson, Mayte Pérez, asserted that these gestures demonstrate “the sectarianism of the current government,” while describing the election of this day as “provocation and lack of respect” for people who still have relatives in the gutter.
For the spokesperson of Chunta Aragonesista, the repeal of this law is “unworthy”, but doing so on 20-N is “outrageous”, while IU spoke directly of “tribute to Franco”.
