Politics is the art of the possible. But, sometimes, it becomes almost impossible to fulfill what is promised by politics. Diplomats say that the Spanish consular network finds itself in this situation: trying to fulfill a number of services for which they do not have enough resources.
They disgrace the Government of Pedro Sánchez and Minister José Manuel Albares for having now promised a massive regularization of immigrants (which also requires paperwork in the places of origin that involves the Spanish delegations) without having prepared a special provision to avoid traffic jams. And all this adds to the work overload that the consular network already faces after the call “grandchildren law” of the Democratic Memory Lawwith which the Executive gave nationality to the descendants of the Spanish emigration.
“It rains in the wet. There has been no planning associated with this political decision. In any sensible administration it would have been determined first what resources are needed to carry out this regularization,” he tells EL PERIÓDICO Alberto Virellapresident of the Association of Spanish Diplomats, the majority in the Career. “You open an unmanned road and then you find frustrations and problems: those who have the right to be assisted and the personnel who have to process it. Spanish consulates abroad are overwhelmed by the burden that regularization will entail of immigrants. With the announcement alone, without the application submission period having begun in April, we are already in a preliminary pressure phase“.
They have expressed this in writing in a letter addressed to the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchezadvanced by Europa Press and to which this newspaper has had access.
Regularization of half a million people
On January 27, the Council of Ministers announced a regularization of immigrants residing in Spain. Will start in April and it will be open until June 30, 2026. It is estimated that they will be able to benefit from less half a million foreigners currently residing in Spain, although if family members who will come later as family reunification are included, the figure will be considerably higher.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, in a Government control session, in the Congress of Deputies, on February 11, 2026, in Madrid (Spain). / Eduardo Parra / Europa Press
To request it, a series of documents are required. The first thing is to prove that you were in Spain before December 31, 2025 and prove a minimum continuous stay of five months. A certificate is also requested stating that there are no criminal record.
“The documents must be certified by the consulate in the country of origin, or by the consular section of the embassy, except in those that are adhered to the Hague Apostille Convention,” explains Virella. “After They will ask for family reunification of spouses and children, and they will do this through the consulates as well. “There are hundreds of thousands more potential applicants.”
The “boom” of the “grandchildren law”
“We have to serve three million Spaniards with the same resources as at the beginning of this century, when there were a million”, contributes to this newspaper a Spanish consul general. “And those will soon become five millionwith their consequent civil registry entries, passports, etc…”
Part of that drastic increase comes from the call “grandchildren law”, an access route to Spanish nationality opened by the Democratic Memory Law of 2022. Descendants of Spaniards abroad could request nationality, especially children and grandchildren of exiles or emigrants who lost it or were unable to transmit it. There was a massive increase in requests in a very short timeespecially in Latin American countries, and, specifically, in Argentina, Mexico or Cuba, destination countries for Spanish exile. In total, more than 2,400,000 nationality applications.
This increase in demand translated into a overcrowded dating system y delays in processing files. The Government itself recognized the overload and the need for personnel reinforcements.
Criticism of the Ombudsman
The matter reached the ombudsman, Ángel Gabilondo, who asked Foreign Affairs in March of last year for reinforcement of personal and material resources of the consulates. Complaints had skyrocketed in 2024 due to the implementation of the “grandchildren law.” Cuba and Ecuador were countries from which the most protests occurred.
The Consulate General in Sao Paulo (Brazil) was given as an example, where there were more than 50,000 pending applications. The situation of the consulates in Havana (Cuba), Casablanca (Morocco) or Miami (United States) was also pointed out.
The situation should improve, because the deadline for submitting these filess ended in October last year. But the processing continues to bog down the consular task.
The Government fails to comply with the 2014 law
The Foreign Action and Service Law of 2014 mandates the preparation of a report by the Government on resources abroad. The first should have been done after the approval of the law, in the Government of Mariano Rajoy. Then a new one every two years. None has been done. “Services and procedures have been added without a single report, analysis or study on its execution“complains the ADE.
The ministry of Foreign Affairs has not responded to the questions asked by EL PERIÓDICO for this article, in particular why the aforementioned media report has not been made. Last Friday, X published a series of messages in which it is recognized that the consular network has had to assume “an extraordinary effort” due to the impact of the Democratic Memory Law, but it is claimed that improvements have been made.
Among them, the “Consular Digitalization Plan” to facilitate procedures without travel. The department led by Albares assures that there has been a “reinforcement of human and material resources” in offices with more load and that the diplomatic and consular network has been “resized” through new consulates, although it does not provide figures.
“There has been no substantial provision”
From the ADE they disagree. They assure that in recent years “there has not been a substantial endowment of the consulates”. They follow, they say, the principle imposed by the Ministry of Finance that any change must be made at zero cost, in the Administration abroad in particular. No additional positions are created, but rather one thing is closed to open another.
“Yes there was some hiring of personlocal labor during the application of the laws of historical memory and democratic memory, and a limited number of deputy consuls were provisionally created,” concludes Virella.
They also criticize the haste of implementation. With the Historical Memory Law of 2007 a period of vacation of the law of one year from its approval until its entry into force, which served to prepare the administration, consulates and procedures. With the Democratic Memory there was not. For regularization, The notice has been only a couple of months..
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