by EUDO citizenship expert Alberto Martín Pérez

The Seventh final provision of the Law 19/2015, July 13th, regarding administrative reform measures in the fields of the Administration of Justice and the Civil Registry, recently passed, introduced a new regulation establishing significant changes in the procedure for residence-based naturalisation. For the first time, fees will be required for submitting naturalisation applications (a EUR100 fee for initiating the proceedings), and language and civic tests will be established for candidates to prove their “sufficient integration” in Spain.

This regulation is to enter into force on October 15th this year. From then on, applications will be submitted electronically to the Ministry of Justice, and not in person to the local Civil Registry, as was the case until now. In fact, Civil Registries lose all the responsibilities they held so far: the global assessment of integration through the interview by the judge in charge of the local Civil Registry is radically replaced by two formal tests: a Spanish language test, which must be passed at the European A2 level from which the nationals of Spanish-speaking countries are exempted, as well as a citizenship test evaluating knowledge of the Spanish Constitution and social and cultural life of Spain. Both tests will be prepared and conducted by the Instituto Cervantes.

This reform has been passed without any public debate within a general bill reforming very different civil law procedures. Opposition parties have criticised the reform rather quietly, in particular the suppression of the interview with the judge which in their opinion provided an overview of the candidate’s life in Spain that the new tests will not sufficiently assess. 

Link to the Seventh final provision of Law 19/2015 (in Spanish).