Spain’s ruling Popular Party (PP) has submitted a draft law which, if adopted, would give descendants of expelled Jews the possibility to acquire the Spanish citizenship. The bill proposes to naturalize applicants irrespective of their country of residence and without requiring them to relinquish any other nationalities they may already possess, according to a report by the news agency ‘Servimedia’.
In the bill, the party “recalls that [the exiled] tenaciously adhered with reverence to its Spanish customs and roots through which they zealously preserved not only their love of Spain but also their traditions, culture and language,” the bill says, according to the report.
Spain’s Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon last year said his government would be offering citizenship to Sephardic Jews descended from the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were forced to leave Spain during the Spanish Inquisition, which began in 1492 before expanding into Portugal.
In April, Portugal’s parliament overwhelmingly ratified a measure granting citizenship to Jews who are descended from those expelled from Portugal. Immigration officials are drafting regulations to put the law into effect. The Portuguese law, which was the first Jewish law of return passed outside Israel, was cited by the bill of the Popular Party, which has an absolute majority in Congress.
“The Popular Party recalls that Portugal recently passed a law that confers Portuguese nationality to descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews and the Spanish government must take an analogous measure,” the bill reads.
