{"id":42595,"date":"2026-06-18T14:57:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T14:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/42595\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T14:57:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T14:57:13","slug":"spain-has-granted-an-average-of-e36000-to-each-recognized-victim-of-francoism-since-1976-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/42595\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain has granted an average of \u20ac36,000 to each recognized victim of Francoism since 1976 | Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spain\u2019s Democratic Memory Law provided, in its 15th additional provision, for the creation of a technical commission to evaluate \u201cthe set of economic measures and reparations directed to the victims of the Civil War and the dictatorship<\/a>\u201d in order to analyze the degree of coverage achieved and identify \u201crectifiable shortfalls.\u201d The final figure produced by that commission\u2019s study shows a cumulative total from 1976 through December 2024 of \u20ac22.16 billion ($25.4 billion) and 611,828 beneficiaries. These are victims and those persecuted on the Republican side, since those from the Nationalist side that won the Civil War were already compensated during the dictatorship.<\/p>\n

The number of beneficiaries of pensions for death or disappearance \u2014 one per family \u2014 totals 113,095, a figure very close to the 114,266 included in the first census of victims compiled by then-High Court judge Baltasar Garz\u00f3n<\/a> in his aborted investigation into Franco-era crimes. The amount paid under that concept through December 2024 exceeds \u20ac4.059 billion. At the end of that year only 3,582 people still received that pension because most beneficiaries have died. A similar pattern appears in another major payment category, aimed at non-professional military personnel and their relatives: 150,293 since the start of the transition to democracy, of whom only 2,548 relatives and 11 survivors were still receiving that payment until two years ago. As for former political prisoners<\/a>, the total number of beneficiaries is 60,683 and the amounts paid total \u20ac397 million.<\/p>\n

The government tried to obtain information from all of the country\u2019s autonomous regions to detail those figures by territory, but most governed by the main opposition conservative Popular Party (PP) did not cooperate. The table with the information provided shows a highly uneven regime of reparations from one region to another and far below the state program. Thus, the total number of beneficiaries in the six regions for which there is information is 26,231, with 61 in the Canary Islands; 983 in Asturias; 22,152 in Catalonia; and 2,522 in Andalusia. Regarding amounts, Catalan authorities have granted \u20ac52.7 million; Andalusian authorities \u20ac9.4 million; Asturias \u20ac3.4 million; Castilla\u2013La Mancha \u20ac3.2 million; Navarre slightly more than \u20ac495,000; and the Canary Islands about \u20ac325,000. The total for the six regions exceeds \u20ac69.7 million.<\/p>\n

The commission urges \u201cpromoting new lines of study to determine possible corrections or, at least, to increase the level of knowledge\u201d about the following groups: \u201cwomen interned in the Franco-era reformatories<\/a> run by the Patronato de Protecci\u00f3n de la Mujer; victims of repression for reasons of religious belief; military personnel repressed in late Francoism for their proximity to democratic positions; people persecuted for their sexual orientation; and people persecuted through Francoist psychiatry.\u201d In addition, the Ministry for Equality identified as \u201cpossible groups to be compensated,\u201d among others, women who were victims of sexual violence during the Civil War and postwar period; Republican schoolteachers who were repressed; and women who were victims of child theft during Francoism and part of the dictatorship.<\/p>\n

Repression of the Roma people<\/p>\n

The government will also publish on Thursday the final report of the \u201cworking commission on memory and reconciliation with the Roma people,\u201d who have just marked six centuries of presence in Spain<\/a>. The document traces the history of persecution and discrimination against the community, including the so-called \u201cgreat roundup\u201d of 1749, devised by the Marqu\u00e9s de la Ensenada (Zen\u00f3n de Somodevilla) and described in the text as \u201can attempt at bureaucratic extermination.\u201d The Marqu\u00e9s de la Ensenada still has streets named after him in the country, something the government, according to sources in the State Secretariat for Democratic Memory, intends to reverse.<\/p>\n

Franco\u2019s victory in the Civil War ushered in, the study says, \u201cone of the harshest periods of cultural repression,\u201d since the regime viewed diversity as a threat to \u201cCatholic national unity.\u201d Police archives from the period contain \u201chundreds of files opened on entire Roma families,\u201d often described in records as \u201cnomadic bands\u201d or \u201csubversive elements\u201d without specific accusations. The Civil Guard had explicit orders to \u201cmonitor Roma.\u201d Sources at the State Secretariat for Democratic Memory say, after the commission\u2019s report was completed, that it has been demonstrated that \u201canti-gypsyism is structural\u201d and that its consequences persist today, which is evident in data such as that 85.9% live at risk of poverty and that more than 60% of Roma students do not finish compulsory secondary education (ESO).<\/p>\n

The commission recommends extending the use of anti-discrimination protocols, promoting Roma participation in public institutions and incorporating Roma history and culture into the education system. There are European funds, according to sources at the Ministry for Equality, that depend on such measures. The government also proposes holding \u201ca major state ceremony\u201d in the Spanish parliament with the presence of King Felipe VI<\/a> to symbolically compensate Roma people discriminated against for decades.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain\u2019s Democratic Memory Law provided, in its 15th additional provision, for the creation of a technical commission to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[19663,3474,42,82,3207,17],"class_list":["post-42595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-baltasar-garzon","tag-felipe-vi","tag-francisco-franco","tag-madrid","tag-pp","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}