Spain accumulates some 350,000 applications for nationality, many of them from migrants from Latin America, which it seeks to streamline with solutions such as an application that in its first month of operation has made it possible to resolve 10% of the total, regarding 35,000.
“This is great news,” he assures EFE the Spanish Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, who qualifies as a matter of State attending to these hundreds of thousands of applicants.
According to data from the National Institute of Statistics of Spain, in 2021 there were 144,012 foreigners residing in Spain who acquired Spanish nationality, mostly from Morocco, regarding 42,000, followed by Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia, regarding 8,300 in each case, and from other Latin American countries such as the Dominican Republic and Venezuelawith more than 6,000 in both cases, Cuba with almost 5,000 and Peru with just over 4,000.
The bottleneck in the management of files in the civil registries has become chronic and now the Ministry of Justice has opted for a computer application to automate all those procedures that are not decision-making and, in this way, streamline the processes, which in their first month of operation last August has contributed to resolve that 10% of pending requests.
“We believe that the application will continue to work and we will be able to expedite this situation for nationalities, because people have been waiting for a long time,” says the minister.
The Ministry of Justice is also carrying out a shock plan planned for nine months with overtime for officials to speed up the process.
In Spain, nationality is acquired by residence for more than 10 years legally and continuously; by letter of nature, which the government decides at its discretion; by origin, if the father or mother are Spanish or born in Spain; by State possession, if Spanish nationality has been used for 10 years continuously and in good faith; and by option, for those who have been subject to parental authority of a Spaniard or the father or mother would have been Spanish and born in Spain.
In addition, Spanish nationality can also be granted to Sephardic Jews originally from Spain.
