Spain falls to fifth best country in Europe to be LGBTQ+, but where's first?

THE island of Malta has once again been named the best European country for being LGBTQ+, while Spain falls to fifth place, one down from last year.

Prepared annually by the International LGBTQ+ Association, criteria such as equality and non-discrimination, legal gender recognition,and hate crimes are investigated in the 49 countries.

The resulting 2025 European Rainbow Map placed Southern Europe’s Malta up top as it leads the criteria rankings. This is despite its conservative laws on women’s rights where abortion is banned in most cases.

Malta has held the top ranked position for the last decade, with the leading Nationalist Party reaffirming its commitment to strengthening LGBTQ+ rights in November last year.

Spain fell to fifth place due to new regulations introduced last year which curtailed previously established LGBTQ+ rights. In Valencia, the reigning PP and Vox parties approved changes to several articles in the city’s transgender laws, such as allowing parents of underage adolescents to oppose their children’s gender transition and preventing educational center’s from specifically discussing gender identity and sexual diversity in their programs.

However, Spain is one of only nine European countries that has full coverage of SOGIESC (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Gender Expression, and Sex Characteristics) in their anti-discrimination legislations.

Malta is followed by Belgium, Iceland and Denmark. The UK dropped six places on the map to 22nd, after the UK Supreme Court ruling in April, which restricted legal recognition for transgender people. The court held a person’s sex in the Equality Act refers only to ‘biological sex’.

Before Malta claimed the rankings, the British Isles held the top position in 2015.

At the other end of the map is Russia and Azerbaijan. Hungary, seemingly influenced by Russia, fell steeply downwards with threats to ban the Pride parade scheduled for June 28. If Viktor Orbán’s government actions this, Hungary will become the first democracy to do so.

“Moves in the UK, Hungary, Georgia and beyond signal not just isolated regressions, but a coordinated global backlash aimed at erasing LGBTI rights, cynically framed as the defence of tradition or public stability, but in reality designed to entrench discrimination and suppress dissent,” ILGA-Europe advocacy director Katrin Hugendubel said.

Spain has joined 20 other EU member states in issuing a statement expressing ‘concern’ and ‘alarm’ over Hungary’s veto of the Pride parade and the implications this will have on freedom of expression.