The Government centralizes international adoption | Society
The Government has approved on Friday a regulation that had been pending since 2015 and that is called to end the blockade in which the management of international adoption was mired. Almost four years ago, the legislation established that the executive centralized an important part of the powers, until then in the hands of the autonomous communities, but in this time the necessary regulation to make the change effective has not been approved. Therefore, it has been impossible to decide on issues such as the suspension or opening of new countries or the accreditation of entities that mediate between families and places of origin of minors. These organizations, which celebrate the approval of the regulation, have been criticizing for years that the inaction of the Spanish authorities has limited the options of the adopters.
The Executive went on to centralize an important part of the competences in international adoption with the Law 26/2015, of modification of the system of protection of childhood and adolescence. But the norm forced to the approval of a regulation that developed this legislation, that has not seen the light until this Friday and will come into force three months after its publication in the BOE. In these almost four years the autonomous communities have not been able to exercise the powers they had held until then, but neither has the Government been able to do so. According to the Ministry of Health, from now on the process will be speeded up, which can last from two to six years, according to those affected.
"Finally!" Susana Morales exclaimed this Friday, director of the Families of Colors entity, -Acredited for the intermediation with families- and one of the driving forces of the struggle of these organizations to demand the regulation. "We are very satisfied, all this time we have been tied hand and foot, now the Executive will be able to lift what were temporary suspensions of countries that we have been dragging for years due to the lack of a competent authority to make decisions of this type, as for example it happens with Nigeria ", explains. "It will allow us to get closer to what happens in other European countries, such as Germany, Italy or France," he adds.
When the regulation enters into force, the countries of origin will no longer have 17 interlocutors and will only have one. Families will be able to contact accredited organizations throughout the country, and not just in their autonomous community, as is the case until now. The contract model will be unique, as well as the costs of the procedures. And the organizations will be accredited by the ministry, not by the autonomies, as it happened until now. It will also create a national registry of accredited bodies for international adoption and another of claims and incidents that may arise, as affirmed this Friday by the Minister of Health, María Luisa Carcedo, during the press conference following the Council of Ministers.
The autonomies will maintain some competences, such as the preparation of suitability certificates for adopters. The communities will supervise the activities that the entities acting as intermediaries with the families carry out in their territory, and the State will do so with those carried out abroad. Carcedo has ensured that the objective of the regulation is "to reduce processing times, which are now cumbersome and long" -may be extended from two to six years-, "streamline procedures" and "provide greater legal security for families and minors."
Fall of the figures
Organizations complain of paralysis during these almost four years. Between 2004 to 2017, international adoptions in Spain have fallen from 5,541 to 531. While it is true that the entities do not attribute this reduction to the delay in the application of the regulation, they regret that during this time the options of the adoptive families have been limited, since it has been impossible to start the process with any country.
Last month, the State Council issued an opinion, which was accessed by EL PAÍS, which endorsed the regulation, the last requirement before going to the Council of Ministers. Catalonia had shown its displeasure with the normative change -and even considered resorting to the Constitutional Court- and claimed its competences in the matter, arguing that it has a Civil Code that contemplates the powers of the Generalitat in matters of international adoption.
The Council of State considers, nevertheless, that the regulation does not violate the competences of the Generalitat, since the administrative phase of the process, in which the accreditation of the intermediation bodies is integrated, the monitoring and control of its activity, "It exceeds the scope of civil legislation, insofar as it does not affect the parent-child relations between adopters and adopters." The opinion also recognizes that the State is competent in matters of international relations.
