The new law of official secrets that the Government has sent to Congress may allow, if approved, that Spain updates with Europe in the way of understanding the declassification of state information. Until now, for some important and delicate folder to know, it is necessary to depend on the will of the government itself, the request of the Congress or the order of a judge, since a Francoist law of 1968 that considers that everything is secret by default and forever, if the opposite is not said. From now on, the paradigm would be the inverse: the automatic declassification of all documents when 45 years pass. That is, today, those dated until 1980, with the exception that it affects national security, in which case the Government reserves the ability to continue maintaining the secret, although it cannot do so if it affects human rights violations.
This would expose files of Franco and the transition and, shortly, of the coup attempt of Tejero. Another thing is where these files are and in what state, but they could be known from the requisition of goods, the economic operations of the Franco regime and family, police torture or details of the pacts with Nazi Germany or the Italy of Mussolini, spying issues and police investigation, for example, of 23f. But also more recent information, after a few years, about ETA and other terrorist groups or peace negotiations or with other countries, such as the Sahara conflict, activities of the Royal House in the stage of Juan Carlos I, the sale of weapons or, in current issues, the espionage to politicians with the Israeli Petgasus program, whose secret would expire in about 40 years.
What in Spain will be a change if it achieves the guarantees in Parliament – after several unsuccessful attempts and despite the unique insistence of the PNV – it has been working normally in other European countries that have also had wars, terrorism and totalitarianism, and that have declassified by automatic prescription of the secret files related to Nazism, fascism, attacks, espionage or international agreements. In surrounding countries there are no rules as restrictive as the current Spanish and are based on declassification due to deadlines, although always reserving exceptions for national security, a sometimes clear concept and sometimes interpretable.
For example, Italy imposes the very secret levelssecret, very reserved and reserved, and when five years go by level automatically. When it is minimal, after another five, the document is released. All this, unless there is an exceptional and argued decision of the technicians. If that exceptional extension is over 15 years old, the President of the Government must be signed. But not always the most relevant files have been known thanks to the law, whose exceptions can leave secret issues of great interest. In fact, successive Italian presidents have declassified by will some issues. For example, Mario Draghi ordered in 2021 to make public documents on the brutal attack of the Bologna train station in 1980, which left 85 dead and for which four people already perpetual chain were sentenced to the neo -Nazi terrorist Paolo Bellini this year. Given the shadows of doubt about other participations in La Matanza, the then President of the Government ordered that documentation related to the Masonic Lodge P2, a subversive group and whose participation in the deadly explosion suggested the Prosecutor's Office at the time be released.
Another of the great Italian declassifications was due to a request of Parliament in 2016, which promoted the secret of 13,000 pages containing war crimes committed by the Nazis in Italy, from persecutions to Jews to executions during the country's occupation in World War II, after the fall of Mussolini.
The United Kingdom also has official secrets legislation, although they are a set of norms that range from the regulation of the country's security to the protection of sources, espionage or the right to transparency. In 1998, the possibility of releasing secrets as a general rule was reduced from 30 to 20 years, but they must go through an analysis and the petition is blocked if it affects national security or the intimacy of people. Some of the things that could have been known for the declassification of information is that Israel, an ally of the United Kingdom, cheated and sent Argentine weapons during the Falklands War, in 1982. or that one of the employees of Isabel II, Sir Anthony Blunt, conservative of the paintings of the royal collection, passed information to the Soviet Union during its close position to the British Crown National Archives, the website that collects the declassified information In this country. As in Italy, information has not always seen the light naturally. In 2012, the United Kingdom was forced to reveal, after a demand for four Kenyan citizens, more than 8,000 pages that pointed to British abuses in their colonies, with abuse and torture against rebels in Kenya and communist insurgents in Malaysia. In a less political area, it also declassified hundreds of unidentified flying objects (UFO): 8,500 pages with photos, reports or radar detections.
The French case
In France there is also an automatic lawsing law (50 years), such as the one that Spain wants to establish (45 here), but also with exceptions. National security, currency integrity or cause a damage to foreign policy, among others. This is precisely one of the essential points for the proper functioning of transparency: “From Amnesty International we ask that the law comply with the triple test by qualifying the secret: motivation, necessity and proportionality,” explains María del Pozo. Although the devil is in details and practical development, from this organization they celebrate that Spain finally leaves the Francoist framework in which everything is a departure secret.
In Germany, the system is similar to the French, although the deadline is less – 30 years – and whenever it is extended, it must be justified. Over the years, numerous documents about the Nazi past, some recent, such as the sect that abused thousands of children in Chile (Dignity colony) have been declassified and that it mounted the Nazi pedophile Paul Shäfer, with the aggravating fact that the documents reveal that the German embassy could turn a blind eye.
Outside Europe, the Argentine president, Javier Milei, has just ordered in March this year the declassification of Nazis files that took refuge in Argentina – with Dr. Mengele and Eichman at the head – as well as the financial operations that were made there. The release of police files related to the dictatorship has also been announced because, according to Milei Foreign Minister, “there is no reason to hide this data”, some data that they are still hidden in Spain, protected by the current law, of 1968.
Liberation of Secrets in the US
But if the declassification is currently today, it has to do with the United States, where Trump has recently ordered public to make the murder of John F. Kennedy (who have contributed little novelty regarding the authorship), by Martin Luther King (despite the opposition of the family) or the Epstein abuses. In the case of the pedophile accused of abusing dozens of women and that committed suicide in prison, the US president had requested that the documents of the trial be made public, something that has been stopped by justice claiming the necessary protection of minor victims. This week, The New York Times He has published that Trump appears in the Epstein archives and that the Department of Justice notified him in May.
As in most countries, in the US it is the impulse of the president that allows us to bring to light extraordinarily documentation. There is a secret protection range that goes from 25 years to 75. One of the most massive declassifications happened in 2017, when they overturned 12 million pages of the CIA with a search engine Incorporated that also allowed to dive at times of the history of Spain through American cables and documents: news that went from the bomb accidentally fallen in popcorn to information from the American embassy that reported that Franco was looking for successor and the agreements to be Juan Carlos I, or the story of the murder of Carrero Blanc confirm the ETA attack.
Although not for legal imperative since the law promotes opacity, the different governments of Spain have also made public information when they have considered it convenient or by court order. For example, when in November 2023 the Court of Instruction 29 of Barcelona requested the declassification of the reserved information on the use of the Pegasus software by the CNI on the expressor Pere Aragonès.
By agreement with Junts, the Government of Pedro Sánchez negotiated in 2024 to release information about the attacks in Barcelona (8 documents on the visits of CNI agents who received the magnet considered intellectual author when he was imprisoned in Castellón). On the other hand, a proposition of EH Bildu in the Congress that had the support of PSOE in June of this year, it has also been requested that the files on the Sanfermines of 1978 and “advance” in the statement as a victim to Germán Rodríguez, the young man who died of a shot in the head by the police that day in the disturbances that followed the incidents in the Plaza de Toros. The initiative was added an amendment of the PNV to include the slaughter of March 3, 1976 in Vitoria, in which five people died and tens were injured by shooting of the armed police against the participants in a labor protest in the Zaramaga neighborhood.
“Spain remains within environmental practices at high secret levels, the question is how it is put into practice and what happens to the lowest rating (called restricted), whether or not it is too zeal to protect certain information,” says Safira Cantos, general director of the Hay right, which alerts possible “cross risks” with the protection of the regulations that protect the corruption alerts.
If the draft does not go ahead because it finds no support in Congress, almost all the decisions and files of the dictatorship and also of democracy would continue under secret. In fact, an agreement of the Council of Ministers of 2010 – at which the Eldiario.es has had access through Amnesty International – approved what the secret matters were in the field of foreign policy: “Negotiations on kidnappings”, “Contacts for peace processes”, “Crimes of international transcendence”, “Travel preparations of the kings and the President of Government when the circumstances advise it”, as well as the position of Spain in conflicts, strategies or information Relative to the performance of terrorist groups and movements to them associated, organized crime and drug trafficking, people and weapons with implications or ramifications in Spain or in the countries with which Spain has signed agreements on these subjects or maintains friendly relations ”. That is, almost everything relevant. As concluded from the well, if the new regulations find not enough support and declines again, “with the current law not only the past will be secret, but also the present and the future.”
