Madrid - Spain's national anthem, the Marcha Real (Royal March), may get official lyrics nearly 250 years after it was first printed, sources of the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE) said Friday. A jury set up by the COE and the authors' association SGAE has chosen a proposal for lyrics from among some 2,000 candidates. The initial number of proposals was more than 7,000, according to media reports.
The representatives of several political parties, however, criticized the proposed lyrics as old-fashioned.
Their official approval would require an agreement between the governing Socialists and the main opposition conservative People's Party (PP), because regional nationalists seeking more autonomy from Spain would be against it, said Jorge Fernandez Diaz of the PP.
The COE needs to collect half a million signatures to seek parliamentary approval for the proposal as a people's initiative.
The COE launched the initiative at the request of athletes who were not able to sing the national anthem at sports contests, and to boost Madrid's bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games.
Nothing was yet known about the author of the lyrics, except that he was a man.
The proposal will be made official on January 21, when Spanish tenor Placido Domingo is to sing it at a sports gala in Madrid.
Two newspapers, however, leaked the lyrics, which stress homogeneity within unity to avoid offending Basque, Catalan and other regional nationalists who do not identify with the Spanish state.
The first of four verses says: "Long live Spain!/Let us sing all together/with different voices/and a single heart."
Gaspar Llamazares, leader of the far-left party Izquierda Unida, described the lyrics as "stale" and "too popular" in style. It was better to keep the anthem as it was than to "introduce lyrics which divide and create suspicions among citizens," he said.
Socialist Carmen Calvo, a former culture minister, said the lyrics did not correspond to the values of modern society, while Catalan separatist Joan Tarda dismissed the anthem as that of a Spain which Catalonia should not be part of.
"It is not my anthem and my nation," Tarda commented.
The only party to defend the lyrics was the PP, with Fernandez Diaz saying it was "logical" for the anthem to be put into words. He expressed hope that Spanish footballers could "patriotically sing their national anthem" at the end of the European Cup.
The Marcha Real, whose origins are unknown, was first printed in 1761. It is one of the world's few national anthems without lyrics.
Lyrics were used for the Marcha Real during the 1886-1931 reign of King Alfonso XIII and under 1939-75 dictator Francisco Franco. Neither version, however, was made official.
