The Government of Spain will support the preparation of an inventory of buildings and works carried out by members of the Disciplinary Battalions of Working Soldiers and prisoners in Militarized Penitentiary Colonies, as well as a list of organizations and companies, which benefited from the use of forced labour during the Spanish War and the Dictatorship, and of the victims of such exploitation.
The Council of Ministers has approved an agreement authorizing the urgent administrative processing, provided for in Law 50/1997, of the Government, of the draft Royal Decree to regulate the direct granting of a subsidy to the Public University of Navarre to prepare this inventory.
Law 20/2022, on Democratic Memory, aims at the recovery, safeguarding and dissemination of democratic memory as an essential element to promote intergenerational cohesion around constitutional values. It also recognizes those who suffered persecution or violence for political, ideological, conscience, religious or sexual orientation or identity during the period between the coup d’état of 18 July 1936 and the entry into force of the 1978 Constitution, promoting their moral reparation and the recovery of their personal, family and collective memory.
The Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory considers it appropriate to articulate an action aimed at the collection, analysis and systematization of information relating to people subjected to forced labour during the Spanish War and the Franco dictatorship, as well as the entities and companies that benefited from such exploitation. An inventory of buildings and works executed by members of the Disciplinary Battalions of Working Soldiers, prisoners in concentration camps, Battalions of Workers and prisoners in Militarized Penitentiary Colonies will also be prepared.
In addition, the selection of the Public University of Navarre (UPNA) as a direct beneficiary of the grant, responds to its institutional and academic characteristics, which make it especially suitable to develop this project, since it has a recognized research career in the field of democratic memory and an accredited specialization in the study of forced labor during the Spanish War and the Franco dictatorship.
For all these reasons, it is requested that the procedure for drafting and approving the aforementioned Royal Decree be processed as a matter of urgency, which, in accordance with the Government Law, entails halving the time limits set for the completion of the processing procedure.