Recognition of the Armenian Genocide in Spain: A Look Back at a Decade of Parliamentary Debates (2011-2021)

In the last few years, several countries have recognized the existence of the genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians between 1915 and 1923. The Kingdom of Spain, which has no ambassador to the Republic of Armenia, has been an exception. Between 2011 and 2018, three motions were presented in the upper and lower houses of the Parliament: all of them were defeated due to the opposition of the majority parties. However, this country has a peculiarity: six autonomous communities (Aragon, Catalonia, the Basque Country, Navarre, La Rioja and the Balearic Islands) and some forty municipalities have recognized the genocide due to pressure from the associations of the 40,000 Armenians residing there.
This paper aims to analyze the arguments presented by the majority parties to reject the genocide in the parliamentary sessions. We will see that, more than the fear of possible sanctions from Turkey, some factors related to Spain’s contemporary history may have influenced the decision. In the same way, we will analyze the factors that have facilitated the recognition of the genocide in the five autonomous communities mentioned above, some of them being the work of the former Consul of Armenia in Barcelona Juan José San Martin, and the support of some peripheral nationalist political parties (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, Partido Nacionalista Vasco, EH-Bildu) to the Armenian cause.