News · Migration
Spain admits, according to Vozpópuli, that Palco workers access Consulate systems in Havana
The Spanish government acknowledged in a parliamentary answer dated September 23 that employees supplied by the Cuban state company Palco have access to documents and computer systems at the Consulate General in Havana, which processes hundreds of thousands of citizenship applications.
The admission appears in a parliamentary answer of September 23, 2026 to a written question filed on July 9 by Popular Party deputy Pedro Muñoz Abrines (initiative 184/041698), reported on Thursday by the Spanish newspaper Vozpópuli, according to Periódico Cubano.
The government explained that the workers provided by Palco perform administrative, technical and support duties under the direction and supervision of the Spanish consular authorities, that they do not exercise powers reserved for Spanish public officials nor take part in decisions on civil registry, passport or visa cases, and that their access to documents and computer systems is «limited to the needs of the service and subject to mechanisms of authorization, supervision and traceability», in a passage translated by Yamacoa.
According to Vozpópuli's investigation, the contract examined lacks specific confidentiality and data protection clauses, and the parliamentary answer does not identify the additional documents where those safeguards would be set out. The documentation examined does not establish that Palco has extracted personal data, made improper searches or passed information to the Cuban authorities, nor does it show that any of that has happened.
The Consulate General in Havana contract (file 2024SWs00114) amounts to 1,131,295.68 euros and covers the period from 2025 to 2028; a second contract allocated 242,743.48 euros to supplying workers to the Embassy. Together, 1,374,039.16 euros. Palco was the only bidder in both procedures.
Pedro Sánchez's government justifies the contracting on the basis of Cuban labor law, which requires diplomatic and consular missions to use authorized employment agencies to take on local staff, a mechanism that, according to Madrid, has been in use since 2017. In August, a Spanish association asked for the consular contract with Palco to be reviewed and annulled because of its possible implications for the handling of citizenship applications.
The Havana consulate has a backlog of hundreds of thousands of applications linked to the Democratic Memory Law, known as the Grandchildren's Law, whose filing deadline closed in October 2025 but whose cases are still being processed. Those procedures require applicants to submit birth certificates, identity documents, family certificates and other personal data.
Sources: Periódico Cubano
Data updated: 2026-10-23T16:15:00.000Z