The Association of Civil Service Archivists denounces the systematic “plunder” that the former presidents of the Government have made of some documents owned by the State
In August 2011with the risk premium skyrocketing and the ‘green shoots’ dry, the then governor of the European Central Bank sent a letter President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. In Congress, the leader of the opposition, Mariano Rajoy, insistently asked him about its content. “I understand that if you do not answer that question, it means that no letter has been sent to us. I want you to answer it, Mr. President of the Government & rdquor ;, it was recorded in the session journal. Its content was confidential and Zapatero refused to share it. An extreme lawyer Isaac Albenizrequested the letter several times from the ECB itself, and the response was that it was “top secret & rdquor ;.
Two years later, when the already ex-president Zapatero published a book of Memories, included the content of that letter in which Jean Claude Trichet demanded economic reforms to curb the deficit. While, the European body continued to deny Albéniz access: “The fact that it was published without the authorization of the ECB or the Spanish authorities has also weighed in the decision not to disclose the letter,” he replied. Until in December 2014 he ended up agreeing to make it public.
What happened with this letter is a good example of the management that is done in Spain of the archives of former presidents. Or rather, of the files generated by the presidents of the Government in the exercise of their position and which are State Patrimony. That is, at least, what the law says: the practice is far from what the regulations establish.
“It is a looting, if not a destruction, of the historical heritage. And all the presidents of the Government have practiced it with total impunity & rdquor ;. The person speaking is the doctor of history and file technician Sergio Biescawho has investigated the “democratic anomaly & rdquor; of presidential documents in Spain between 1978 and 2021.
“We have objective evidence that hardly any documentation has reached the central archive of the Ministry of the Presidency and that is the confirmation that they have taken it. I asked myself in writing in my research to the archive & rdquor ;, he insists. From the Association of Spanish Archivists of the Public Function (AEFP), Henar Alonso explains that the colleagues in the Ministry of the Presidency assure him that they will have “about fifteen or twenty boxes of presidents of the Government & rdquor;. And it does not seem like a very numerous documentation in 45 years of democracy.
The case of Felipe González
The Historical Heritage Law states that “documents from any period generated, preserved or collected in the exercise of their function by any public body or entity, by legal persons in whose capital the State or other public entities and by private, natural or legal persons, managers of public services in relation to the management of said services & rdquor ;.
It was the Government itself that cited this regulatory provision in a parliamentary response in 2019, in which it said not having evidence that there was no control over the presidential documentation at the end of the mandates.
“The documentation generated in the exercise of the position of any of the outgoing presidents is transferred to the Archive of the Ministry of the Presidency and trusts the good work of the responsible archivists & rdquor ;, pointed out the Executive.
That parliamentary response came after the Felipe González Foundation made public more than 50,000 documents that were presented as “personal files & rdquor; that the former president showed in an almost heroic gesture for transparency. But the question that the archivists asked themselves was another: How had a documentation that had to be in the hands of the State gotten there?
“It is not an example of transparency or generosity. What they would have to do is apologize and return to the State that documentation that ex-president González looted& rdquor ;, says Gálvez, who insists that the Foundation “exhibits the documentation they consider appropriate and without archival criteria, but rather political ones, to improve their public image& rdquor ;. “Can we imagine that a former president would have taken the paintings from La Moncloa and then would have shown them in a Foundation as his own? Well, it’s the same & rdquor ;, says Alonso.
They are extremely valuable documents for the management of the public and the recent history of the country, and yet, former presidents use them as if they were personal files, giving access on a whim and ignoring in many cases what the legislation on their custody establishes. “They have acted in bad faith and they knew they would get away with it. And the curious thing is that the Heritage Law was signed by González himself& rdquor ;, recalls Alonso.
Classified information
It looked like a scene from a movie. This Wednesday, several FBI agents again entered a home of Joe Biden, the president of the United States, to search it. It is not the first time it has happened. In a previous search, the search for him lasted almost 13 hours, until they found documents marked as classified from his time as senator and vice president.
Months before, the same FBI searched the Mar-a-Lago mansion of former President Donald Trump and took twenty boxes full of folders with classified and even top-secret documentation. Both events will political repercussions and could even have criminal ones: Official White House documents are federal property, must be kept in a secure manner, and must be turned over to the National Archives when a president leaves office.
The Spanish Official Secrets Law makes it very clear that classified documentation cannot leave certain dependencies, it cannot even be consulted -it cannot even be touched- without authorization. However, it is unlikely that the files that the former Spanish presidents have taken away will not include a document of this type. The truth is that it is difficult to verify it. There are no inventories of classified documents generated by the Government and it is not even possible to know what matters or matters are classified as such. You can’t miss something you don’t even know exists.
“All public documentation has to be in public archives, whether or not it can be accessed legally,” says Alonso, who defends that “if it is not sent to public archives, it will never end up being accessible& rdquor; not even if its consideration as a secret declines.
The former Defense Minister, José Bono, has been one of the last to be involved in a matter of this type. He donated to Fundación Pablo Iglesias a documentary archive of his public life full of official documents: a note that the head of the CNI sent to the minister on the 11-M attacks or investigations by the Air Force Staff on the Yak-42 accident. And one of the most striking: a report written by the Defense Chief of Staff in 2006 recommending the dismissal of a lieutenant general who suggested a military intervention in Catalonia.
When a citizen requested it through the Transparency Portal, Defense claimed that said report is not in his file. Now, the Transparency Council has estimated the citizen’s claim and will have to reveal it.
Alonso defends that “Documentation is not an exclusively cultural asset, it helps us citizens to exercise our rights& rdquor;. However, in Spain the Central Archive is a general sub-directorate within the Ministry of Culture. “It is a cultural and patrimonial environment, and in the imaginary archivists we handle files, very tied up and full of dust & rdquor ;, says Alonso, but the records are much more than that. “In the United States, for example, there is talk of document managers and they are guarded by a federal agency, the highest level of the Administration & rdquor ;.
public or private
Calvo Sotelo He kept two hundred perfectly cataloged boxes at his home in Somosaguas. Some of them are now in the Spanish Transition Foundation, after his friend Charles Powell, among others, rescued them from the family fund. The objective was “to save the documentation that some families had at home and could not keep & rdquor ;. The problem is that there are those who consider them personal files.
“Any document generated in the exercise of the Presidency is official information & rdquor ;, says Antonio Malalana, historian and documentalist. “Another thing is the private material they have, not as presidents, but in a personal way & rdquor ;, he insists. But sometimes it is not easy to distinguish.
“Something similar happens with the gifts that presidents receive, are they in a personal capacity or for their position? It happened to Felipe González with the bonsai they gave him as gifts & rdquor ;, he recalls. The former president ‘donated’ them to the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) in 1996, after leaving the Presidency.
In the presentation of the González file, the former minister Jose Maria Maravall He pointed out that there was information “from the intelligence services & rdquor; that “convincingly manifests the position of the PSOE not to participate in any elections if the PCE was not legalized& rdquor ;. There are also letters that various foreign leaders sent to the “president of the Government & rdquor ;. It is difficult to understand them as personal documents.
The Qualifying Commission for Administrative Documents It is in charge of determining what is stored and how, and what is destroyed, always based on some archival criteria and not others. “That is why there has been a body of State archivists since the 19th century & rdquor ;, as the AEFP spokesperson defends. This entire documentary cycle seems completely incompatible with the images of paper shredders put to work before a change of government, or that of presidents leaving their offices after being ‘fired’ with hundreds of documents in cardboard boxes.
“Who has to act, why doesn’t he do it? It is they who must be asked this question & rdquor;insists Gálvez, who recalls that the Minister of Culture himself endorsed with his presence at the presentation of the Felipe González archive what the archivists consider a looting of public and official documents.