Congress of Deputies, Madrid
The Government will allocate 11.35 million euros in the next General State Budgets for activities related to Democratic Memory. An endowment that almost fivefold the 2012 item, the last year in which items for Memory were budgeted in public accounts.
From the approval of Law 52/2007, known as the Historical Memory Law and until 2011, the budget items for the Memory policies were increasing year after year, reaching a total investment during the aforementioned period of 25.2 million euros. However, this trend was truncated from 2012 with the People’s Party in government. That year the budget item for Memoria was reduced by 60%, to 2.5 million euros, and disappeared completely in the budgets of the years 2013 to 2018.
The Government resumes funding via budgets for activities related to memory by 2021. With regard to the main lines of action, 28% will be used to finance direct actions of the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory through studies and technical work; 9% will be used to hold meetings and conferences and 29% will be used to carry out actions with the Autonomous Communities. In addition, 11% will target local entities and another 9% will target non-profit entities and institutions.
This budget is an unequivocal commitment and a firm commitment to the policies of Democratic Memory and gives solid support to them in a period of transition between the application of the objectives of the current law of Historical Memory and the challenges that the future Law of Democratic Memory entails.
60% intended for exhumations
In accordance with the commitment of the President of the Government to promote the exhumations of the victims of Franco’s regime who continue in mass graves, as early as 2020 a plan of exhumation shock has been launched through grants to non-profit associations in the amount of 750,000 euros (60% of which is destined for exhumations) and another 750,000 euros through the FEMP, destined in its entirety for exhumations.
It is also being prepared with the CC.AA. and local authorities a four-year plan for graves, the first annual amount of which will correspond to the items included in this budget. All this means that 60% of the budget of activities, included in the budget of the Secretary of Democratic Memory, will be dedicated to the first annuality of the four-year plan of exhumation of graves.
• Exhumation plan for victims of the Civil War and dictatorship.
- Agreements with the CC.AA. and transfers worth 3,000,000 euros.
- Promotion of the relationship with local entities, through the FEMP, in matters related to democratic memory. The budget will be 1,000,000 euros.
- Annual call for the ministerial order for the granting of grants to non-profit entities and associations for activities related to Democratic Memory. The budget is 895,000 euros, to which must be added a finalist item of 105,000 euros for the exhumation of the pit of Pico Reja in Seville, in a performance in which all public administrations collaborate.
- Actions in the crypts of the Valley of the Fallen to exhume, if technically possible, the remains that have been demanded by relatives of those buried there.
- Implementation of a National DNA Bank.
- Preparation of a national census of victims.
Other performances
• Elaboration of the census of buildings made with forced labor.
• Promotion and declaration of places of Memory.
• Elaboration of the census and withdrawal of Francoist symbology.
• Creation of the General Council of Democratic Memory.
• Resignification of the Valley of the Fallen.
• Actions for the knowledge of the truth, dissemination and training on Democratic Memory.