“More than a million” requests for regularization have been submitted in Spain by foreigners in an irregular situation as part of a massive plan by the socialist government launched in mid-April and which ends on Tuesday June 30, announced Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
“We want the world to see Spain as a country that respects, protects and guarantees human rights,” he said in a speech, praising a “good decision for our economy” while recognizing “the challenges” related to integration. Favorable to a welcoming policy, its left-wing government is an exception on the migration issue within the European Union, going against the hardening carried out by many countries.
As part of this massive regularization plan, the authorities have three months to process applications and issue – or not – to these applicants a residence and work permit only valid in Spain. The deadline for submitting applications is this Tuesday evening. All interested people had to prove at least five months of presence on Spanish soil as of January 1 and also prove that they did not have a criminal record.
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By launching this procedure, the executive said it estimated that it would benefit “nearly half a million people”, the vast majority from Latin America. This plan is “a key step to bring out of invisibility a reality that exists in our country, that of hundreds of thousands of people who live among us”, said Pedro Sánchez on Tuesday, defending his “legal, safe and orderly” migration policy, with the objective of “offering an opportunity and a future”.
Immigration is “necessary” to support “the needs of the Spanish economy”, particularly in regions of the country emptied of their population, he said, also referring to the aging of society.
In his speech, the socialist leader also accused the People’s Party, the main right-wing opposition party, and the far-right group Vox, opposed to this plan, of “fueling fear, stirring up xenophobic discourse which does not resolve any problem”. “Living together is not free of tensions, we know that,” he admitted, however, saying he did not want to “deny the problems, the challenges that stand before us,” but rather “face them and resolve them.”
On the occasion of the last day of the regularization plan, the seventh in the modern history of Spain, Pedro Sánchez announced the creation of an “Integration and Citizenship Plan” initially endowed with “500 million euros in the first year”.
