The Partido Popular has adopted a proposal previously pushed by Vox that would allow some naturalised Spanish citizens to be stripped of their nationality for serious crimes.
The announcement of the policy comes just months after the PP rejected a similar measure put forward by their hard-right rivals.
It seems the party is attempting to win back voters after a series of polls suggested they are shedding support to Vox following the Ceuta crisis.
In a shift further to the right, PP leader Alberto Nuñez Feijoo confirmed this week that his party is working on legislation governing the granting, retention and loss of Spanish nationality.
Under the proposal outlined by Feijoo, people who acquired Spanish nationality could potentially lose it if they later belonged to a criminal or terrorist organisation, or were repeat offenders convicted of serious crimes including sexual abuse, rape or murder.
Feijoo argued that granting citizenship represented an act of trust by the Spanish state towards somebody born abroad, and that committing certain serious offences could break that trust.
The proposal would require changes to Spain’s existing legal framework. Current legislation does not provide for Spanish nationality to be withdrawn simply because a person subsequently commits one of the serious crimes cited by Feijoo.
PP rejected similar Vox proposal
In April, Vox tabled an amendment in the Interior Committee calling for Spanish nationality to be revoked from people who had acquired it and subsequently committed serious crimes, as well as for their expulsion.
The PP voted against that amendment.
Vox had also introduced an organic law proposal concerning the legal framework governing nationality in 2024 which did not receive PP support.
The party returned to the issue this July, registering another bill that has yet to reach a plenary debate.
Vox parliamentary spokeswoman Pepa Millan welcomed the PP’s latest position while arguing that her party had advocated the policy since entering Congress.
She also urged the PP not to wait until it enters government to pursue the measure, but instead to act on the issue in parliament now.
Who could actually lose Spanish citizenship?
There is an important distinction for foreign residents and naturalised Spaniards.
Feijoo’s proposal is aimed at people who acquired Spanish nationality, rather than Spaniards generally losing citizenship whenever they commit a serious crime.
His party has not yet produced a final enacted law setting out precisely who would be covered or all the safeguards and exceptions that would apply.
