The Balearic PP: "No problem if the repeal of the Memory Law is suspended"

PalmaThe Balearic PP is indifferent to the suspension of the repeal of the Law of Democratic Memory by the Constitutional Court (TC). Sources from the parliamentary group have recalled that the PP voted in favor of the repeal to please Vox in exchange for its support for the 2025 budgets. "We always stated the same, that for us the repeal was not a priority and that it was also covered by state law," assures the party: "The PP fulfilled its agreements, and from here on out, no problem that the repeal has been suspended until the TC definitively rules on it".

Sources from Marga Prohens's Government have also avoided commenting on the TC's decision. "It is not a law promoted by the Government, but by a parliamentary group, and approved in Parliament," say sources from the Executive: "Maximum respect for the Constitutional Court's decision."

On the other hand, Vox spokesperson Manuela Cañadas, who promoted the repeal with the support of the PP, has been critical of the Spanish government for having challenged the repeal, as she already did with the case of Aragon. "We respect judicial decisions, but we find it shameful that the [Spanish] government is challenging the repeal of a law approved by the Parliament of the Balearic Islands," she said. According to Cañadas, it is "false" that repealing the Law of Democratic Memory affects the policies for the location and identification of those disappeared during the Francoist repression, because the Law of Pits remains in force. "The word democracy and the government of [Pedro] Sánchez do not go hand in hand," she lamented.

This is not the first time that the PP and Vox have clashed over the repeal of this law. Just after perpetrating it, the second vice-president, Antònia Estarellas, assured that memory policies would continue to be applied because she understood that the state law covered the points suspended by the pact with the far-right, to which Vox accused the popular party of having deceived them. "They are not fulfilling anything agreed upon," criticized the deputy spokesperson for Vox, Sergio Rodríguez: "The repeal was supposed to have consequences."

Armengol: "We are on the right side of history"

The President of Congress and former President of the Balearic Islands, Francina Armengol, has considered that the TC's decision shows that the socialist government is "on the right side of history". In a message on X, she said that "democratic memory is not a matter of the past", but rather "a commitment to truth, justice, reparation, and the dignity of the victims". She also lashed out at the PP: "It has opposed the great democratic advances of our country, those who deny our past and our history".

MÉS celebrates the decision: "The victims of the dictatorship deserve justice, reparation and dignity"

MÉS per Mallorca has positively valued the decision of the Constitutional Court (TC) to provisionally suspend the repeal of the Law of Democratic Memory of the Balearic Islands. Deputy Maria Ramon considered that the resolution is "good news for democracy, for the victims of Francoism, and for the defense of human rights".

The eco-sovereigntist party recalled that it had already warned Parliament that the institutions' duty to seek truth, repair victims, and preserve the memory of those who suffered Francoist repression could not be "erased with a vote". Following the TC's decision, MÉS has called on the PP to abandon its policy on democratic memory and to stop, according to the party, placing institutions "at the service of the far-right's revisionism". Likewise, it has defended that the victims of the dictatorship deserve "truth, justice, reparation, and dignity".

Maria Ramon assured that MÉS per Mallorca will continue working so that the Law of Democratic Memory remains in force and so that the Islands "do not take any step backwards in the defense of democratic values". In this regard, she claimed that democratic memory "is not a matter of the past", but "a guarantee for the present and for the future of democracy".