Romanians in Spain

Romanians in Spain ( ro, Românii din Spania; es, Rumanos en España, ca, Romanesos a Espanya) form the second largest group of foreigners in the country, after Moroccans in Spain, Moroccans. , there were 623,097 Romanians in Spain. Most of the immigration took place given economic reasons. The linguistic similarities between Romanian language, Romanian and Spanish language, Spanish, as well as Romanians' Romance-speaking Europe, Latin identity, are also a reason for the country's attractiveness to Romanians.

Currently the number of Romanians in Spain is decreasing. In 2012, there were 897,203 Romanians living in Spain, in 2021 their number decreased to 556,204.

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 the country, falling to 623,097 by 2022. Because of this, the Romanians in Italy, diaspora in Italy, which has continued to increase, 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. In recent years, emigration to Southern Europe has started to slow down, with many Romanians now preferring Northern European countries such as Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Notable individuals

*Alexandru Buligan (b. 1960) – handball player and coach
*Mihaela Ciobanu (b. 1973) – handball player
*Cosmin Contra (b. 1975) – footballer and coach
*Gheorghe Craioveanu (b. 1968) – footballer
*Alexandru Dedu (b. 1971) – handball player
*Constantin Gâlcă (b. 1972) – footballer and coach
*Cristian Ganea (b. 1992) – footballer
*Adrian Ilie (b. 1974) – footballer
*Valeriu Lazarov (1935–2009) – television producer, director of Spanish channel Telecinco
*Gheorghe Popescu (b. 1967) – footballer
*Roxana Popa (b. 1997) – artistic gymnast
*Virgil Popa (b. 1975) – conductor
*Marcela Topor (b. 1976) – journalist
* (b. 1981), activist

See also

*Romania–Spain relations
*Romance-speaking Europe

References

Sources

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{{Portal bar, Romania, Spain
Romanian diaspora, Spain
Ethnic groups in Spain
Romanian minorities in Europe
Spanish people of Romanian descent,
Romanian emigrants to Spain