The choice of 2025 as the Year of the Gypsy People in Spain, sponsored by the head of state, Felipe VI, coincides with the 600th anniversary of the presence of Gypsies on the Iberian Peninsula, documented in a safe-conduct signed in 1425 by King Alfonso V of the then Kingdom of Aragon.

The celebrations formally kicked off on Sunday with a flamenco show at the Prado Museum in Madrid, followed by a meeting today at the Moncloa Palace, the seat of the Spanish government, of “representatives of the Roma people in Spain” with the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez.

On Tuesday 8th April, International Roma Day, an unprecedented ceremony is planned in the Congress of Deputies, the Spanish parliament, presided over by the kings of Spain, Felipe VI and Letizia, to honour and recognise the Roma people.

This is “an important recognition of the institutions both in terms of the past and for the future”, with a “very relevant impact for the Roma people” in Spain, said the director-general of the Roma Secretariat Foundation, Sara Giménez, at a meeting with journalists from the foreign press in Madrid, including the Lusa news agency.

For the Secretariado Cigano Foundation, the largest European non-governmental organisation promoting the inclusion and human rights of Roma people, these have been, above all, 600 years of “a harsh history of persecution”, with attempts to abolish Roma culture and communities in Spain, including discriminatory legislation, until 1978, when the current Constitution came into force and democracy was formally re-established in the country.

This Year of the Roma in Spain also aims, according to Sara Giménez, to “commemorate and publicise the reality” of the Roma communities, who are not recognised for the contribution they have made and continue to make to Spanish society and culture.

There is a lack of recognition, but also “real knowledge” of the history and culture of the Roma people in Spain, beyond clichés or folklore, defended Sara Giménez, who criticised the gaps on this subject in the country’s school curricula.

There is a “Spanish imaginary” about gypsies in which “clichés persist” and in which the majority of members of the community, estimated at between one million and 1.3 million people, “are invisible”.

On this, the 600th anniversary of the documented presence of the Roma people on the Iberian Peninsula, “the great outstanding challenges” are still “the fight for real equality and the fight against “anti-gypsyism”, as this minority continues to be the most discriminated against in Europe and also in Spain, emphasised Sara Giménez.

In declaring 2025 the Year of the Roma in Spain, the Spanish government emphasised “the exclusion, persecution and discrimination” that the community has suffered and continues to suffer in the country, but also “the cultural, social and linguistic footprint” it has on society.

For the Spanish government, the 2025 celebrations are an opportunity to recognise “the historical and current injustices faced by the Roma people” and to denounce the “significant barriers” they face in areas such as education, employment and housing.

The executive recognises in the same text that Roma people continue to be the target of “structural discrimination and prejudice” that limits their opportunities and perpetuates the social and economic exclusion of the community.

In this context, the government says that marking the 600th anniversary of the Roma people in the Iberian Peninsula is an act of historical remembrance and an institutional commitment to "combat the inequalities that still persist".