The MIRCo Centre, in collaboration with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and other institutions, has organized the International Seminar: Atado y Bien Atado: The End of Dictatorships in Southern Europe’. The years 1974–1975 were a decisive period for Southern Europe. In a short period of time, the dictatorships in Portugal, Greece, and Spain collapsed, paving the way for democracy. However, the transition routes were deeply different, ranging from revolution and rupture to negotiation and compromise, and these differences have had a profound impact on the political culture and collective memory of each country.
This seminar, which took place on November 25th, 26th and 27th 2025 in Madrid, has been celebrated with big success, attracting a very diverse public and actively contributing to the historic and political debate on political transitions. Next, we reproduce the chronicle made by Boris Kanzleiter (Rose Luxemburg Foundation) for more information:
Unresolved dictatorships
It is a past that does not want to disappear. Even 50 years after the death of Francisco Franco on November 20th 1975, the dictatorship he imposed during decades still projects shadows upon the Spanish society. Although Franco’s passing shaped the end of the regime he installed with the military coup in July 1936 and the victory over republicans in the Civil War in April 1939, the transition to democracy remains incomplete.
In exchange for the legalization of opposition parties and parliamentary elections, Francoist elites were exempt from criminal prosecution. Spanish fascism had caused, according to some estimations, around 200,000 direct victims, just in the period between the military coup until its seizing of power. However, it was never judged. The repression and human rights violations until the 60s also remain unjudged, although they caused thousands of additional victims.
The lack of a political and judicial struggle against the fascist dictatorship is now taking its toll. The progressive, coalition parties, with socialist Pedro Sánchez as president, have made some advancements from 2018 onwards, although limited, regarding the political revision of the past, thanks to the pressure from some memorialist groups. For instance, the historical claim of removing Franco’s remains from the “Valle de los Caídos” –a religious monument to fascism, a place for falangist pilgrimage, built during the regime and of public access—to a private place has been achieved. With the 50-year anniversary of Franco’s death, the Government created the Committee for the celebration of 50 years of Freedom in Spain (Comisionado para la celebración de los 50 años de España en Libertad), entity that organized tenths of public celebrations during this commemorative year.
However, the crimes of the regime are still unpunished. The Amnesty Law, passed in 1977, and its following impunity are central elements in the Spanish transition. That law, that in Spain is also known as “ley de borrón y cuenta nueva”, or “ley de punto y final”, is still in place. In fact, the current Democratic Memory Law does not establish any sanctions for the tormentors, or any compensation for victims. Either does it create an independent mechanism able to shed some light on rights violations.
Now, polls show that around 20% of the Spanish population has some sympathy for the dictatorship. Among young men, Franco’s popularity grows. According to other polls, around 20% of Spanish young men would vote for the far-right party Vox, which in last years has consolidated more to the right of the Partido Popular, of post-Francoist and conservative origin. In Spain, no cordon sanitaires exist.
The end of dictatorships in Southern Europe
The issue of the transición was precisely the focus of the discussions during a week of activities organized by the Rose Luxembourg Foundation offices in Madrid and Athens. It was a dialogue between historians and memorialist actors from Spain, Portugal and Greece. The Spanish example was discussed in the context of military dictatorships of Portugal and Greece, that had taken place a year ago, in 1974. The comparative perspective not only focused on the “transition to democracy” phases during the mid-70s, but also on the current challenges of memorialist activities and the debates regarding historic policy. It was obvious that the growing force of the far-right in the three countries is deeply related to the way dictatorships are confronted.
With the help of Manos Avgeridis and Ioanna Vogli, from Contemporary Social History Archives (ASKI) from Athens and MIRCo-UAM in Madrid, the Rose Luxembourg Foundation was able to invite important historians from the three countries. Professor Kostis Kornetis, a member of the governmental commission “España en Libertad”, who also supported the event, made himself clear during his initial presentation that the three dictatorships in Southern Europe were rightfully situated in a same context, shaped by the Cold War, among other issues. At the same time, Kornetis stressed that advancements in research have made the differences between the three cases clearer. These were shown, above all, in the three different ways the rupture took place during the 70s: the Carnation Revolution in Portugal, shaped by big social mobilization and a new constitution; the “agreed transition” in Spain, with important mobilization deficits; and the fall of the Regime of the Colonels in Greece, shaped by processes against the military, but socially far less deep than in Portugal.
Other contributions to historization focused, among other issues, on the role of emotions in protest movements (Prof. Polymeris Voglis), on the Iberian context of protests and repression in Spain and Portugal (Prof. Raquel Varela), on the role of women as political actors in the struggle against the dictatorship and fascism (Magda Fytili and Carme Bernat), in the methodological nationalism of the Greek communist left (Prof. Kostis Karpozilos) and on democratic deficits with Jaime Pastor (Viento Sur, Madrid) and the historian and former MP from En Comú Podem, Xavier Domènech. The activities finished with an urban walk through resistance and repression spots in Madrid, and with a visit to the Cuelgamuros Valley, organized by Miguel Urbán, who, between 2015 and 2024, was a MEP from THE LEFT in Brussels, and son of a militant tortured in Francoist prisons.
The sessions on politics and memory practices of victim groups and other left-wing organizations drew much attention. Professor Adrian Shubert presented an online museum dedicated to the Spanish Civil War. Historian Stathis Pavlopoulos explained the virtual documentation project of ASKI, which offers 30,000 documents on the history of the dictatorship, partisan struggle and civil war in Greece. The director of the Resistance and Freedom Museum in Portugal, Aida Rechena, explained how was also established with the engagement of victim groups. Mayki Gorosito, from Buenos Aires, broadened our look of the treatment of the Argentinian military dictatorship (1976-1983). In Argentina, at least, there was a judicial review of the crimes of the dictatorship. However, these victories are being reverted by the far-right government of Javier Milei. This is also patent in the case of Gorosito herself, who, last June, was forced by Milei to resign as the director of the memory place-museum ESMA, former clandestine torture, detention and extermination hotspot, in the enclosures of the Escuela Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA). The Latin-American perspective was complemented with the speech of Claudia Marchant, who works in the memory space Londres 38, a museum located in the former headquarters of the DINA secret police in Santiago de Chile.
These successful activities in Madrid, which gathered a very interested public, are now the second dialogue between historians from Spain, Portugal anf Greece, organized by the Rose Luxemburg Foundation. The first one took place in 2024, commemorating the 50 years of the fall of the Regimes of the Colonels in Athens. The foundation thus has consolidated as one of the few hotspots for scientific and political debate that challenges, from a comparative perspective, the legacy of unresolved dictatorships in Southern Europe. Remembering dictatorship victims is conceived as an eminently political contribution to the struggle against the new and growing far-right extremism, that in the three countries—and beyond—works to relativize or even glorify these crimes.
