Sanchez has stated that the O23 papers pay off the debt to the citizens

The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, stressed today in Congress that with the publication of the papers of the attempted coup d'état one of the debts owed to the citizens is paid. Inthis regard, Mertxe Aizpurua, spokesman for EH Bilduat the congress, has asked him to take a further step and raise the secrets about the GALand the murder of Mikel Zabalza.

During the monitoring session held at the Congress, Aizpurua asked him whether he would declassify documents from other cases of "great importance to Basque society", such as the O23 today. 

"We welcome this decision, but it is not enough, and it is not enough because they are still under secrecy and impunity, the facts and crimes that are of the greatest importance to the Basques and to our history, many of them prior to the O23, "he said. 

These include the "murder" of Mikel Zabalza; the "unsolved disappearance" of José Miguel Eteberria; the GAL; the Basque Spanish Battalion; the events of the 78 sanfermines in which Germán Rodríguez was shot dead by the police; or the events in Vitoria in 1976 in which five workers were killed.

"Basque society has a right in all of them to know what happened in the dirty war against the people ure," he said.

In response to Aizpurua, Sanchezhas stressed that "it is a great day for democracy" because the papers of the O23 will be published, because transparency is a reflection of "progress, democracy and the consolidation of democratic culture." 

"We are repaying a debt that we had not only with researchers and scientists trying to clarify passages and moments of history close to our country, but also with society, where citizens have the right to know everything related to this attempted coup d'état," he stressed. 

In response to the request made by EH Bildu's spokesman, Sanchez recalled that last July the Council of Ministers approved the Classified Information Bill, which is being processed in Parliament, and that if it were adopted, it would mean "the annulment of the Official Secrets Act, which is a pre-constitutional law". 

According to Sanchez, this law would "equate Spain with the most advanced democracies in terms of transparency and management of official secrets." 

That is why he has urged political groupsto support this project in forthcoming sessions, "to have a current, democratic law that would definitively invalidate the 68 law." 

The meeting of EH Bildu's spokesman has sparked criticism and complaints among members of the People's Party, to the point that Congress President Francisca Armengol must silence him. 

His question at the control session, PP Congressman Guillermo Mariscal has told Aizpurua that what he has to do is "help clarify" the murders of ETA.