Romanians in Spain


Romanians form the second largest group of foreigners in Spain, after Moroccans., there were 609,270 Romanian citizens and 521,181 people born in Romania living in Spain. Most of the immigration took place given economic reasons. The linguistic similarities between Romanian and Spanish, as well as Romanians' Romance identity, are also a reason for the country's attractiveness to Romanians.

Background

After the December, 1989 Romanian Revolution, emigration was liberalized, but for the next few years, emigration to Spain was modest. It started to increase slowly during the late 1990s, and exploded after 2002. Emigration was further facilitated by the entry of Romania in the EU in 2007. By 2011, it reached a peak of nearly 900,000 people, after which the Romanian population has been steadily decreasing as a result of emigration from Spain since 2012 due to the economic problems and unemployment in Spain, as well as because of Romania's rapid economic improvement, falling to 623,097 by 2022. Because of this, the diaspora in Italy, which has stabilised in numbers above 1 million people, is now considerably larger than that in Spain.

Population

Romanian diaspora in Spain is today the second Romanian diaspora in the EU, after that of Italy. Romanians in Spain have settled especially in the provinces of Madrid, Castellón, Valencia, Zaragoza and Barcelona.

Notable individuals