Jews’ descendants pile into Iberia

More than 90,000 descendants of Sephardic Jews who fled the Inquisition at the end of the 15th century have become citizens of Spain or Portugal since laws allowing them to in 2015.

Almost 250,000 have applied, with Spanish authorities granting one in four applications, while Portuguese officials rubber-stamped two in three.

Both countries passed laws offering a naturalisation process for those who could show that their ancestors fled the Inquisition, a campaign of religious persecution 500 years ago, where hundreds of thousands of Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula were forced to convert or leave.

Spanish and Portuguese media said thousands of applications were still pending and that about 70 percent of the applicants for Portuguese citizenship were Israeli. By comparison, Israelis made up less than five percent of Spanish applications.

Spain toughened its vetting after intelligence suggested that the process was being used by non-EU criminals to gain EU citizenship.

In Portugal, there is now a debate about whether the country’s naturalisation vetting is too lax, with Russian-Israeli billionaire Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, having been granted citizenship last month.