Spain’s government to keep state secrets confidential for up to 60 years

The Spanish government has approved a new bill that will let the state keep secrets confidential for up to 60 years. The bill will grant the Spanish Ministry of the Presidency the authority to propose the declassification of documents. For now, this power rests with the Ministry of Defense.

The new law establishes four categories of protection of official secrets: top secret, secret, confidential, and restricted. Depending on the category of documents, the declassification terms range from 4 to 60 years.

In this way, the ministry led by Félix Bolaños will assume the authority to recommend the declassification of documents. However, the final decision will ultimately rest with the council of ministers, at least for documents with a higher degree of protection.

Catalan pro-independence parties oppose this law, arguing that the Spanish administration wants to continue hiding what happened during the Transition and the 23-F coup attempt.

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