It will not be the first act on the agenda of the President of the Government, but it will serve to mark a year of commemoration of the arrival of democracy after the death of Francisco Franco. On January 8, Pedro Sánchez will celebrate the opening ceremony of the Reina Sofía National Art Center Museum in Madrid. ‘Spain in freedom’the first of the more than one hundred events which he announced to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the end of the dictatorship.
The event on January 8 will be in the capital, but the Executive has planned more than a hundred commemorations throughout the national territory throughout the year. The intention, as Sánchez himself explained when he announced the program on December 10, is to value the “great transformation” in this half century of democracy and also “pay tribute to the people who made it possible”.
The president advanced the holding of these events for next year on December 10, in an act of ‘Day of Remembrance and Tribute to all the victims of the military coup, the War and the Dictatorship’, and in which he announced the Government’s intention to promote this series of events by ensuring that a scientific committee made up of experts who will collaborate in the execution of an “intense program of activities.”
“Almost half a century has passed, but the consequences of the wound are still visible and demand reparation like the one the victims receive today. If we are here today it is because In the end democracy triumphed, but that victory is never definitive“Today we still hear proclamations favorable to Francoism in Congress,” said Sánchez, who once again defended the Democratic Memory Law approved by his Government and showed his rejection of the concord laws approved in some autonomous communities by the PP governments supported by Vox.
“History is written by the victors and the Franco regime dedicated itself to this work,” the President of the Government also pointed out, to defend that it is time to do the opposite, “recover that Spain that is essential in the history of our countrynot to separate us, but to unite us in a shared memory.”
Sánchez’s announcement to schedule more than one hundred events throughout Spain to commemorate the return of democracy was not without criticism from the opposition, so a new pole of political confrontation throughout 2025.
Regional and municipal leaders such as Isabel Díaz Ayuso and José Luis Martínez-Almeida from Madrid have already advanced that They will not join any of the acts planned by the Executive. While the first accused the president of “provoking violence” with these events, the second described them as “pamemas” and “smokescreens,” and noted that he will only attend those events that “reclaim freedom in Spain.”
In fact, the Ayuso Government accused Sánchez and the left of take out “the ‘freedom'” every time “they are in a hurry”. Now, they say, he does it “because he is cornered by cases of corruption” and is “incapable of managing the challenges and problems that our country has.”
The national spokesperson of the PP, Borja Sémper, spoke in similar terms, who sees “too crude” the political “calculation” who believes he is hiding behind the acts announced by Sánchez. As he recalled, democracy did not come immediately after Franco’s death, and that is why he ironically said that the PSOE “joined with determined impetus to celebrate that Arias Navarro was president of the Government of Spain.”
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