A large delegation headed by the president of National Heritage, Ana de la Cueva, and by the director of Real Estate and Natural Environment of the institution, Luis Pérez de Prada, as well as representatives of various ministries, met yesterday in Cuelgamuros, with the aim of take note on the spot of the peculiarities of the enclavewhose resignation the Government foresees based on the Democratic Memory Law.
There were no ministers at this meeting, which seemed to correspond to the monthly meeting planned by the commission created in the Council of Ministers on July 2, but there was a representation of each department involved, as this newspaper has learned.
The group, made up of at least a dozen people, held a meeting of about an hour in a room that has been enabled for this purpose in the old facilities of the funicular cafeteria,as LA RAZÓN announced yesterday.
During this exchange of views, one of the main issues on the table was the future of the religious community, whose transfer the Executive wants to undertake, as well as How to face the change of meaning for the Valley of the Fallenan objective that we want to culminate in the events planned for next year, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the death of Francisco Franco.
The delegation then toured the basilica and the crypts, where it was accompanied by members of the forensic team in charge of the exhumations carried out by the Secretariat of State for Democratic Memory at the request of 170 families, although they have been detained since the Court of Contentious-Administrative Number 10 of Madrid will paralyze the works license.
The group He also visited the viewpoint and the workers’ villageuntil he left the facilities in the early afternoon, once this contact was completed.
In this context of change, a royal decree is being planned that will configure a new legal status for the complex, with the upcoming extinction and liquidation of the Santa Cruz Foundation, in application of article 54 of the Law that expanded the assumptions of the norm. 2007. The Benedictine monks who have been in the Valley since 1958 have no place in this future plan, as Moncloa has decided. The Government has explained that the expulsion will be a decision made by the Vatican, with which it says it has established communication. It must be remembered that there has been a Church-State Concordat in force since 1953 and ratified in 1979.
This task has been assumed by the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes, Félix Bolaños, as responsible for relations with the Church. But Moncloa is clear that the congregation – which watches with resignation and silence as events unfold – must leave Cuelgamuros. This is what the Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, said in the Senate: «They cannot be in that location and we will do it that way»assured the minister who also made it clear that the identification of the State with a certain religious confession “has been surpassed.”
Regarding the new use for the Valley of the Fallen, the Government’s plans involve convening a international competition in which we consider what should be from now on, including all spaces, both the basilica and the crypt as well as the river dam or the store.
The Executive has included two specific decrees in the Annual Regulatory Plan for 2024. The first has to do with the complete resignification of the monumental complex as a place of democratic memory. Includes approval of “royal decree that regulates the organization, operation and patrimonial regime of the Cuelgamuros Valley”. The objective is to “establish the operating and organizational regime, in accordance with the provisions of article 54 and the first transitional provision” of the Democratic Memory Law approved in October 2022. Actions that were also included in the coalition pact signed between PSOE and Sumar last year.
In May 2023, the site’s website was inaugurated, a first concept of the future memorial interpretation center planned by the Government. It is “a new look at the monument, based on the analysis of its architectural, religious, heritage, funerary and political history. To give new meaning to the monument, it is necessary to explain it as a complex and contradictory process,” according to the website itself.
Vigilant against all these steps is the Association for the Defense of the Valley of the Fallen (ADVC), which is currently litigating with the Community of Madrid for the declaration as an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC) and firmly supports the permanence of the Benedictines in which has been his home for almost 70 years.
Objective: create a “place of reconciliation”
The most visible measure of change has to do with the basilica where Franco was buried until October 2019. The ultimate goal is to create a “place of reconciliation.” The law states that “the name of the Valley of the Fallen is modified to be called the Valley of Cuelgamuros, as a place of democratic memory whose re-signification will be intended to make known, through plans and mechanisms of investigation and dissemination, the circumstances of its construction, the historical period in which it is inserted and its meaning, in order to strengthen constitutional and democratic values.