Asymmetries, Lights, and Shadows of the Legal Situation of Religious Minorities in Spain

Abstract

The Spanish Constitution of 1978 recognizes the fundamental right of freedom of conscience and religion, the principle of equality and non-discrimination on religious grounds, and the principle of secularism and neutrality of the state. However, the legislative development of these principles is strongly stratified, and different levels of rights can be distinguished, depending on whether we are speaking about confessions with an agreement (Catholic Church, evangelicals, Jews, and Muslims), those with a mere declaration of well-known roots (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Buddhists, Orthodox, and Bahá’ís), and the rest of the confessions merely registered in the Register of Religious Entities (Hinduism, Taoism, Sikhism, Church of Scientology, etc.). Only the Catholic Church has access to the income tax allocation, and only denominations with an agreement enjoy the main tax benefits, or religious teaching in schools. The declaration of notorious rootedness has very limited effects at present (recognition of marriage and the mere expectation of signing a cooperation agreement with the state, provided there is political will to do so). It is, therefore, necessary to opt for a model of common law, which is more neutral and applies equally to all religious groups.

1. A Polyhedral Introduction

1.1. General Legislative Landscape on Religious Freedom in Spain

Spain and its constitutional and legislative bodies have sought to address the issues around inter-religious dialogue and living.

The need to abandon maximalist solutions when drafting constitutional precepts was unanimously felt by all sectors of the parliamentary arc during the transition to democracy, a political process in which the active collaboration of the Spanish Church in those decisive moments cannot be forgotten. It was not a mere product of political expediency or the result of a resigned submission to an inexorable destiny. Previously, the Catholic Church had renewed its doctrine on relations between the church and civil society, which took shape during the Second Vatican Council and was expressed most clearly in the Declaration Dignitatis Humanæ.

Constitutionally speaking, the principle of secularism recognized in Article 16 of the Spanish Constitution has a double function: positive, on the one hand, consisting of the duty to guarantee religious freedom on the part of the public authorities, which allows the possibility of the exercise of all those activities that constitute manifestations or expressions of the religious phenomenon, free from any coercion by the public authorities, and negative, on the other hand, which would operate as a limit to state cooperation with religious denominations. It also implies that both the state and religious denominations must respect their mutual independence in their own affairs, and that religious values cannot be imposed in political life without following the procedure of discussion that allows access to any type of values in the public sphere (Celador Angón 2024; Pardo Prieto 2024a).

The idea of secularism should not be viewed as an act of hostility toward the religious phenomenon, but rather should be broken down into three basic pillars: full recognition of the right to religious freedom, state neutrality toward religious denominations, and the separation of the state from religious groups.

Just as without political pluralism there can be no democracy, so without a reasonable religious pluralism we are likely to head toward confessionalism or anticlericalism (Relaño Pastor 2009, p. 239).

Social and political dynamics have historically perpetuated or challenged this stratified system and exerted a strong influence beyond just legal mechanisms.

In Germany, Anna Körs’s work on “contract governance” examines how specific legal and political agreements at the subnational level shape the integration of religious minorities (Körs 2019, pp. 456–73). The intercultural dialogue may be an excellent tool of cooperation, inclusion, and problem resolution. The German experience analyzed by Emmerich shows the importance of practical steps, such as the creation of the first Muslim–Christian kindergarten between the local Catholic and Protestant mainline churches, the Christian welfare association, Diakonie, the DITIB (Turkish–Islamic Union for Religious Affairs) mosque, and the city council in the Northern German town of Gifhorn between 2007 and 2020. Stereotypes and gender barriers were reduced among children through the mutual exploration of each other’s religious identities (Emmerich 2022, pp. 578–95). The varying levels of legal recognition might influence the internal organizational strategies of religious minorities in Spain. Groups with “notorious rootedness” or agreements have greater capacity to negotiate cultural and linguistic preservation within the public sphere, as seen in the German context of mosque–state relations (Emmerich 2023, pp. 2779–98).

1.2. An Asymmetric Regulation for the Different Religious Groups

A first source of dysfunctionality between the impeccable wording of the constitutional principles and the reality, in terms of the content of the rights recognized to religious denominations (and, even more importantly, their followers, as citizens who are the original holders of a fundamental right, that of religious freedom in this case), is constituted by the existence of differentiated frameworks that allow us to describe different scenarios, which can be graded from greater to lesser in terms of the recognition of rights (Pardo Prieto 2024b).

The legal status in Spain of religious minorities without a cooperation agreement with the state is characterised by its strong asymmetry in relation to those that have managed to sign one with the state. This factual circumstance, apparently minor, has enormous legal consequences, since the Spanish model of relations between the state and religious denominations, far from being homogeneous, is characterised by a pyramidal staggering, metaphorically speaking, and the final consequence is that not all citizens travel on trains of the same class:

(1)

The Catholic Church enjoys the agreements signed in 1976 and 1979 with the state, equivalent to international treaties, which recognize a broader catalogue of rights and privileges, including exclusive access to the personal income tax allowance.

(2)

Evangelicals, Jews, and Muslims, whose agreements were approved by Laws 24, 25, and 26/1992 of 10 November, contain a more limited catalogue of rights, because although they enjoy the tax benefits of profit-making entities, they do not have access to the personal income tax allowance, and the direct public financial aid received in their case from the Pluralism and Coexistence Foundation is much less. The only exception is found in relation to the exemption from the payment of special contributions (specific taxes collected because of the benefit obtained by the citizen obliged to pay it, with a public work, or for the establishment, or enlargement, of new public services), which the Catholic Church renounced through an exchange of diplomatic notes dated 29 March 2023,1 and which they continue to enjoy, as these three confessions continue to be recognized under Article 11.3.A of their respective agreements.

There are several important differences between the 1979 Agreements with the Catholic Church and the 1992 Agreements with evangelicals, Jews, and Muslims (Llamazares Fernández 2007, pp. 394–96; Suárez Pertierra 2011, p. 52; Fernández-Coronado González 1995, p. 107).

  (a)

Formally, the 1979 Agreements with the Catholic Church were signed by the Head of State, and the authorization of the Cortes was prior (by application of Article 94 of the Spanish Constitution). In contrast, the 1992 Agreements were signed by the Minister of Justice on behalf of the government, and the approval by the Cortes as an ordinary law came afterward, processed by the single reading procedure, without the introduction of amendments, since in this regard there was a political commitment on the part of the parliamentary majority supporting the government.

  (b)

With regard to their legal nature, the agreements with the Catholic Church are assimilated to international treaties, although according to Llamazares, they are not international treaties, strictly speaking, as they are not listed as such in Article 6 of the 1969 Vienna Convention, despite the presence of the representative of the Holy See, and because the latter does not recognize the jurisdiction of any international court on the basis of the principle prima sedes, nemine iudicatur, and therefore lack the cover of genuine international jurisdictional protection (Llamazares Fernández 2007, p. 395).

In the 1992 Agreements, the parties are the confession concerned and the government, with the latter undertaking to send them to and defend them before Parliament. As such, agreements are in principle only binding on the parties, but they become law erga omnes when approved by an Act of Parliament. Unless Parliament’s plenary itself, in the exercise of its sovereignty, decides otherwise by accepting its treatment by the single reading procedure, the draft is in principle subject to possible amendments to the totality, and also partial amendments. For this reason, the possibility remains open for the presentation of propositions or bills subsequent to its entry into force, which propose its modification or even repeal, with the government being obliged only to inform the corresponding religious group so that it may express its opinion (a mandatory, but not binding, report).

  (c)

The 1979 Agreements enshrine the principle of bilaterality, so that in the event of objective interpretative doubt, it must be resolved by both parties, which can produce problems. The 1992 Agreements, however, include a single additional provision which excludes the principle of bilateralism, since it empowers the government … to issue the necessary provisions for the development and implementation of the provisions of this Agreement, and does not confer interpretative powers on the implementation and monitoring committee.

On the other hand, we cannot forget the consequences of having opted for this type of instrument, since by virtue of Article 96 of the Spanish Constitution, international treaties validly concluded, once officially published in Spain, will form part of the internal order, and their provisions can only be repealed, modified, or suspended in the manner provided for in the treaties themselves.

The Supreme Court ruling of 19 November 20142 annulled Order EHA/2814/2009 of 15 October,3 which restricted the scope of the tax on constructions4 exemption to those properties that were exempt from real estate tax5, on the grounds that this went against the literal wording of Article IV of the Economic Affairs Agreement, and introduced an innovation in the legal system, and violated the mechanism for resolving doubts and difficulties arising in the interpretation and application of the Agreement between the Spanish State and the Holy See of 3 January 1979, provided for in Article VI thereof. Thus, the state cannot unilaterally innovate against what has been agreed, as the Supreme Court affirms, but rather, if the state does not reach an interpretative agreement with the Catholic Church, the only alternative for the state should be to denounce the Agreement, and this will have a very high political cost.

  (d)

With regard to their extinction, the provisions of international treaties may only be repealed, amended, or suspended in the manner provided for in the treaties themselves or in accordance with the general rules of international law. The principle lex posterior derogat lex anterior does not apply to the 1979 Agreements. However, in the case of the 1992 Agreements, we are dealing with ordinary laws, albeit of a special nature, which means that they can be repealed by a subsequent general law if the latter expressly states so.

(3)

The religious groups with a declaration of well-known roots (notorio arraigo), and which for this reason maintain the expectation of being able to sign an Agreement with the State, and little more, such as having the right to a seat on the Advisory Commission on Religious Freedom (Comisión Asesora de Libertad Religiosa), in accordance with Royal Decree 932/2013 of 29 November,6 which regulates this administrative advisory commission (Y. García Ruiz 2024, p. 465).

Royal Decree 932/2013 of 29 November constitutes an effort to provide content to the declaration of well-known roots. However, this declaration has very limited effects, such as the right of these religious minorities to be represented in this Commission, and the state recognition of marriage in religious form, following the entry into force of Law 15/2015 of 2 July 2015 on Voluntary Jurisdiction,7 and the mere expectation of the subscription of a cooperation agreement with the state in a near future, if there is any political will (García García 2014, p. 175; Murillo Muñoz 2014, p. 469).

The religious groups that enjoy said declaration but lack a cooperation agreement with the state are:

  (a)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (23 April 2003).

  (b)

Jehovah’s Witnesses (29 June 2006), after quite a few problems, by the way.

  (c)

Buddhists (18 October 2007).

  (d)

Orthodox (15 April 2010).

  (e)

Bahá`ís (The favorable report of the Advisory Commission on Religious Freedom was agreed on 7 September 2023, and the declaration of roots was materialized through Order PCM/1065/2023 of 18 September).8

(4)

Confessions merely registered in the Registry of Religious Entities, whose regulation has been subject to development under RD 594/2015 of 3 July.9 Until they obtain the declaration of well-known roots, they will have no expectation of signing an agreement with the state. This is the case of Hinduism, Taoism, Sikhism, or the Church of Scientology.

(5)

Those that have not been able to access this Registry, and which lack legal personality as religious denominations.

It has been criticized that Article 5 of the Organic Law on Religious Freedom establishes registration in the Registry as a constitutive requirement, whereas Article 22 of the Spanish Constitution declares that the registration of associations only occurs for the purposes of publicity (Souto Paz 1999, p. 538).

This problem is especially serious, due to the administrative practice of denying the registration of those groups with respect to which the person in charge of the Registry understood that they lacked religious purposes.

This practice was overcome by the Sentence of the Spanish Constitutional Court 46/2001 of 15 February,10 whose Legal Basis 8 indicates that the state is not authorized to carry out an activity of control of the legitimacy of the religious beliefs of religious entities or communities, or the different modalities of their expression, but only to verify, emanating for this purpose an administrative act of mere verification, without a qualify content, that the requesting entity is not one of those excluded by Article 3.2 of the Spanish Organic Law on Religious Freedom, and that the activities or conduct that are developed for its practice do not violate the right of others to exercise their freedoms and fundamental rights, nor are they contrary to public safety, health, or morality, as elements of the public order protected by law in a democratic society, referred to in Article 16.1 of the Spanish Constitution.

In short, the great distinction would be between two groups of confessions: those with a cooperation agreement with the state and those that do not have one.

For all these reasons, it is necessary to seek a regulatory model that can be applied equally to all religious denominations, in order to reduce serious differences in treatment, and that is fully compatible with constitutional principles.

2. The Obsolete Declaration of Notorious Roots as a Key to Access an Agreement, and to First-Class Citizenship

Legally, the key to accessing a cooperation agreement (and thereby being a first-class citizen) lies in the declaration of well-known roots, regulated by Royal Decree 593/2015 of 3 July,11 which arose with the good intention of rationalizing the granting of said recognition and reducing the margin of discretion of the administration (Torres Sospedra 2023; Torres Gutiérrez 2024). For this, the following is required:

(a)

Registration in the Registry of Religious Entities for thirty years, unless recognition abroad of at least sixty years is accredited and has been registered in the aforementioned registry for a period of fifteen years.

It is an unoriginal requirement, as it is directly influenced by Law 16/2001 of 22 June on Religious Freedom in Portugal, which, in its Article 37, speaks of identical periods of 30/60 years, of organized social presence, in Portugal or abroad, to be able to obtain the declaration of settlement in Portugal.

It has the advantage of being objective and easily measurable (there is nothing more fleeting than the passage of time), although it has not been exempted from some mischief, since the Resolution of the Minister of Justice of 8 June 2016 denied the recognition of the roots of the Odinist Community of Spain–ASATRU, registered in the Registry in 2007. The Judgment of the National Audience of 27 February 201812 dismissed the appeal filed, considering in its third legal basis that it is not acceptable to attempt to prove historical roots dating back to the year 411 and to supposed Germanic cults of the Swabians in Spain.

(b)

Proof of presence in at least ten autonomous communities and/or the cities of Ceuta and/or Melilla. This seeks to avoid the excessive Portuguese fragmentation, where the establishment of highly localist groups, rooted even in a single municipality, is recognized as notorious (radicação).

But this requirement has a perverse effect, since it does not take into account that many confessions are distributed territorially in a heterogeneous way (Villa Robledo 1985, p. 178; Fernández-Coronado González 2000, p. 293; Mantecón Sancho 1995, p. 19), due to the confluence of various geographical, migratory, historical, or cultural factors. This can have unforeseen and undesirable consequences, such as making it impossible to recognize certain confessions such as Hinduism (which has more followers than many confessions with a declaration of notorious roots, but whose presence is especially limited to the cities of Ceuta and Melilla and the Canary Islands) or the Sikh community (very present in Valencia and Catalonia, but without a homogeneous weight in the rest of the territory). The Church of Scientology, in its allegations to the Draft of the Royal Decree of 23 July 2014, unsuccessfully proposed that presence in three or four autonomous communities would be more than enough (Torres Sospedra 2023, p. 93).

It is possible to understand that it is one more manifestation of a conception that tends toward the centralization of the management of religious freedom, a centralized model with a tendency toward uniformity, which requires that the same religious diversity also exist in the majority of the autonomous communities (Castro Jover 2023, pp. 21–22).

(c)

Having at least 100 inscriptions, or entries, in the Registry of Religious Entities, between registrable entities and places of worship, or a lower number in the case of entities or places of worship of special relevance due to their activity and number of members. The aim of this provision is to establish an objective implementation requirement that is easy to verify administratively. It may be questioned that this is a somewhat high number, although once the law is in place, the trap will also be in place, since it can lead to registering small communities, without an activity of sufficient magnitude, in order to reach that numerical threshold.

(d)

Having an adequate and sufficient structure and representation for your organization for the purposes of the declaration of well-known roots.

The non-accreditation of the existence of places of worship, and of an organic structure, was one of the elements taken into account to deny recognition of the roots of the Odinist Community of Spain–ASATRU.13

(e)

Proving their presence and active participation in Spanish society, something which could have been explained in more detail. The Resolution of the Minister of Justice of 8 June 2016 denied the establishment of roots to the Odinist Community of Spain–ASATRU, which alleged an implausibly low number of followers, estimated at 400 people in 2008.

The Sentence of the National Audience of 27 February 2018,14 rejecting the appeal filed against this denial, understood that this community did not accredit a relevant number of followers in Spain; it is not admissible, for the intended purposes, to incorporate members of other confessions or pagan organizations whose representation is not accredited at all.

The conditions required in Sections (d) and (e) suffer from a certain indeterminacy, requiring a flexible and equitable application to avoid possible arbitrariness. There will always be judges in Berlin who can supervise possible administrative abuses when applying these indeterminate legal concepts.

The express provision of positive silence after a period of 6 months without administrative answer is a sensible measure15 in the absence of an administrative response. It is also a clever innovation to introduce an optional appeal for reconsideration before the Ministry of Justice, as well as the appropriate one before the contentious-administrative jurisdiction,16 which will result in greater legal security.

This regulation has tried to objectify the administrative action regarding recognition, but it errs on the side of relying excessively on quantitative criteria, perhaps an old remnant of the traditional 19th-century Spanish sociological confessionalism.

3. The Margin of Discretion of the Federations with an Agreement When Admitting New Groups Within Them

An additional problem that arises when it comes to achieving the benefits contemplated in the agreements, for the various religious groups, is that of having to be admitted to the respective federations that signed them.

Some authors foresaw the problems that could arise from the respective Article 1 of the 1992 Agreements, as the article left it up to the religious authorities whether or not to join the federations that signed them, and thus benefit from their provisions (Ciáurriz Labiano 2004, pp. 23–64; Motilla de la Calle 2014, pp. 964–65).

Time proved that this point of view was right, due to the shortcomings of the procedure and its perversion depending on the specific sociological or doctrinal circumstances of the respective federations. The Explanatory Memorandum of the Royal Decree 1384/2011 of 14 October makes it clear that at the time it was issued, more than 30% of Islamic communities were not part of the Islamic Commission of Spain (CIE).17

Not to mention the sui generis integration of some religious confessions within certain federations, such as the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Serbian Orthodox Church, into the Federation of Evangelical Religious Entities of Spain (FEREDE).18 This raises the twofold difficulty of answering both why some Orthodox churches have been accommodated in a Protestant federation and why these particular churches and not others. The consequences are important, as it depends on whether or not they can enjoy the benefits of the agreement with the state.

The Romanian Orthodox Church rejected at the time the legal hospitality offered to it by the Federation of Evangelical Religious Entities of Spain (FEREDE), out of theological coherence. But being coherent in Spain can cause many headaches, such as not having access to the tax benefits linked with the signature of an agreement (with donations not being deductible in the personal income tax, or corporate tax, and having to pay property tax on places of worship), or the social security coverage provided to the ministers of worship of the federation (Vidal Gallardo 2024b).

These problems could be solved with a model of common legislation which would apply equally to all religious denominations, although this would require overcoming the Catholic Church’s stubborn attachment to the 1979 Agreements.

4. Asymmetries Arising from the Lack of a Cooperation Agreement

4.1. Impossibility of Receiving Direct State Funding

Only the Catholic Church has access to the tax allocation, an item that in the 2024 Tax Income campaign (corresponding to the income of 2023, the last one with data),19 represented 382,437,998 euros. It is difficult to break an inertia that dates back to the Spanish Constitution of 1837, when the state undertook to finance it directly, in compensation for the disentailment of Mendizábal.

On the eve of the Spanish Concordat of 1851, this item accounted for more than 12% of the PGE, a real economic drain, which deprived resources for investment in education or public infrastructure. The bill was frankly expensive, as it resulted in Spain leading Western Europe in illiteracy rates at the beginning of the 20th century, and the railway network inherited from that period suffered from an inefficient radial structure, which has conditioned the territorial integration of the state.

Historically, there have been powerful reasons for such generosity, such as the Carlist pressure which made the support of the Holy See so necessary for Isabel II, or the legitimization that the support of the Catholic Church itself provided for General Franco’s dictatorship after the Cainite Civil War of 1936–1939.

The two main attempts to put an end to this privilege were doomed to failure, that of Eugenio Montero Ríos during the reign of Amadeo I, and the frustrated provision contemplated in Article 26.3 of the Constitution of the Second Republic, inspired by the French Law of Separation of 1905, which provided for the extinction of the endowment of worship and clergy within a maximum period of two years.

Perhaps a solution similar to that of the Netherlands should be considered, where, as a result of the law of 7 December 1983 abolishing state funding of the churches, a period of 20 years was set during which the state would pay 250 million guilders per year, after which time the churches would no longer be financed by the state. After this period, the churches ceased to be financed from public funds as of 1 January 2004, in addition to the termination of the postal franchises enjoyed by the ecclesiastics as of 1 January 1994 (Cimbalo 1989, p. 319).

Since the entry into force of Law 2/2004 of 27 December, on the General State Budget for 2005, the confessions which signed the 1992 Agreements (evangelicals, Jews, and Muslims) have received a series of amounts through the Public Foundation Pluralism and Coexistence, which have been fluctuating, as the budget item that financed it began with 3,000,000 euros, rising to 5,000,000 euros in times of economic prosperity, between 2008 and 2010 (Díaz Rubio 2013, p. 121; Ciáurriz Labiano 2008, pp. 105–22).

This funding has two differences with respect to that of the Catholic Church: it is quantitatively less, both in absolute and per capita terms, and it is also qualitatively different, since it is not freely available to the confessions that receive it, as it is conditioned on financing social and cultural integration projects. This funding has hardly reached the denominations without an agreement, which have only marginally benefited from it.

In addition, Royal Decree 1158/2021 of 28 December,20 Royal Decree 886/2022 of 18 October,21 Royal Decree 696/2023 of 27 July,22 and Royal Decree 675/2024 of 26 July23 have provided for direct subsidies to minority religious denominations that signed a cooperation agreement in 1992, for the financial years 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024, amounting to 1,179,623 euros, which were distributed in favor of the Federation of Evangelical Religious Entities of Spain (526,780.35 euros), the Spanish Federation of Jews Communities (210,712.14 euros), and the Spanish Islamic Commission (433,130.51 euros) in each of these years.

This practice continues for the financial year 2025, as Royal Decree 560/2025 of 1 July24 raises this overall figure to 1,200,000 euros, to be distributed over the course of that year between FEREDE (540,000 euros), FCJE (216,000 euros), and CIE (444,000 euros), which presents at least two problems:

(1)

From the point of view of the principle of secularism of the state, these rules justify this aid on grounds of public and social interest, giving the impression of inducing confusion between public and religious purposes and functions, something which is expressly forbidden by the Sentence of the Spanish Constitutional Court 340/1993 of 16 November (Castro Jover 2003). They are aimed, for example, at the remuneration of personnel hired by the federations of the beneficiary denominations, the ordinary running and maintenance costs of these entities, the holding of conferences, congresses, meetings, training activities, statutory assemblies, rentals and equipment, the production, editing and distribution of informative material and publications specific to the entity, per diems and travel expenses of the members of its governing bodies, sporadic collaborations of professionals, the contracting of professional accounting, legal, labor, financial and external auditing services, investment and rental expenses (including building refurbishment or repair expenses), and the purchase of equipment. They are also directed toward the financing of training activities for ministers of worship and teachers of religious education, as if it were a sui generis public service.

(2)

That of the principle of equality and non-discrimination on religious grounds, as it only includes the three federations of confessions with a cooperation agreement, leaving out both the confessions which only have a declaration of well-known roots (which, at least it was not the case with the 13th Additional Provision of Law 2/2004 of 27 December of the National State Budget for 2005), and those that are merely registered.

This regulation leaves out, for example, the Romanian Orthodox Church, which has a much larger number of followers than some of the confessions with an agreement, such as the Jews.

These are subsidies granted on an exceptional basis (Article 1 of Royal Decree 1158/2021). Since these are exceptional subsidies, one might expect that they would not be granted again, but Royal Decrees 886/2022 of 18 October, 696/2023 of 27 July, and 675/2024 of 26 July seem to point in precisely the opposite direction, and from historical experience in this area, one cannot be too optimistic that someone will one day remember the provision of Article 16.3 of the Spanish Constitution, according to which no confession shall have a state character.

4.2. Exclusion from Access to the Tax Benefits Granted to Denominations with an Agreement

Only denominations with an agreement have access to the tax benefits granted to non-profit organizations under Law 49/2002 on the tax regime for non-profit organizations and tax incentives for patronage.

Article 129, Section 6 of Royal Decree Law 6/2023 of 19 December,25 provides, with effect from 1 January 2024,26 for the deduction of donations in favor of denominations with an agreement in personal income tax: 80% of the first 250 euros, and 40% thereafter (45% if they are maintained for more than 2 years), with the limit of not exceeding 10% of the tax base.

It is problematic, from the point of view of maintaining the necessary state neutrality, that these deductions are only recognized for denominations with an Agreement of Cooperation, and all others are left out, so that both the registration and the declaration of well-known roots are empty of specific content on such a sensitive point, with a view to achieving the adequate economic self-sufficiency of the denominations, and with this, the full exercise of the fundamental right to religious freedom, in conditions of equality and non-discrimination.

Article 129.7 of Royal Decree Law 6/2023 of 19 December,27 with effect from 1 January 2024,28 provides for an increase in the percentage of deduction for donations in favor of denominations with an Agreement on corporate income tax of 40% (50% if they are maintained for more than 2 years). Donations must not exceed 15% of the taxable income of the year giving entitlement to the deduction.

On the occasion of the validation by the Spanish Chamber of Deputies of Royal Decree Law 6/2023 of 19 December, and its processing as a bill by way of urgency, amendment 420, presented on 6 March 2024, by the Socialist Parliamentary Group, to the bill approving urgent measures for the implementation of the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan in matters of public service of justice, civil service, local regime, and patronage, provides for the extension of the deductibility in personal income tax and corporate income tax of donations in favor of denominations with a mere declaration of well-known roots.29

Equally questionable are the deductions in real estate tax (in Spanish: Impuesto de Bienes Inmuebles, IBI), enjoyed by denominations with an agreement, in relation to the homes of their ministers of worship (which gives them a better tax regime than that of civil servants) and of orchards and gardens (properties of dubious connection with the exercise of the right to religious freedom).

The Sentence of the Spanish Constitutional Court 207/2013 of 5 December30 declared the unconstitutionality of paragraph 7 of the sole article of the regional Law of Navarre 10/2013 of 12 March, which sought to limit the scope of the tax benefits to only those buildings intended for worship, leaving out of the exemption the rest of the real estate, on the grounds that it violated the principle of pacta sunt servanda, and that Navarre could not oppose the international treaties signed by the state (Cebriá García 2014, pp. 319–22; Guardia Hernández 2015a; 2015b, pp. 233–61; Maraña Sánchez 2014, pp. 714–20).

The Sentence of the Spanish Constitutional Court 207/2013 of 5 December missed the opportunity to resolve whether or not tax exemptions for religious denominations are in line with the Constitution, a reflection that we fully agree with, since what the provincial regulation did, by limiting the real estate tax exemption to properties used for worship, was, on the other hand, fully respectful of the constitutional principle of the secularity of the state (Maraña Sánchez 2014, pp. 714–20).

A Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Hindu temple, or a cathedral of the Romanian Orthodox Church must pay this tax punctually, which is tantamount to putting sticks between the wheels in the exercise of a fundamental right, for people who are equal before the law, and who are mostly citizens of the European Union.

On 29 March 2023, the Catholic Church renounced the exemptions on the tax on constructions, using an exchange of diplomatic notes, an instrument foreseen to resolve doubts in the treaties, when here there was full certainty that they were recognized in the 1979 Agreement, although they were suspected in some cases of going against European regulations on state aid. Parliament learned of this from the press. The waiver included places of worship, which was not questioned by anyone, and which paradoxically harms minorities, who have to build them, and who lost any expectation of being exempted in the future. The Catholic Church also renounced the meager exemptions on special contributions (in Spanish: contribuciones especiales), so the confessions that signed the 1992 Agreements, which have not been modified, continue to enjoy this exemption.

The acquisition of objects intended for Catholic worship is currently subject to, and not exempt from, VAT. The Catholic Church, which was the only denomination that enjoyed certain VAT exemptions and exemptions recognized in Articles III and IV of the Agreement of Economic Matters, renounced these with effect from 1 January 2007, in exchange for an increase in the percentage of the Allocation from 0.5239% to 0.7%.

In absolute terms, the new model implemented as of 1 January 2007 has been very positive for the Church, as it has led to an increase in total revenue from the allowance (from 144 million euros in 2006 to 250 million euros in 2007), an increase in revenue far greater than the cost of waiving VAT benefits (incompatible with the 6th European Council Directive of 17 May 1977 on the harmonization of the laws of the Member States relating to turnover taxes), which was estimated to be between 20 and 30 million euros (Giménez Barriocanal 2017, p. 41).

It was one of the few cases of asymmetry that had been corrected until now, although the increase in the percentage of participation in the income tax quota for the allocation, since 2007, was notably more onerous for the public coffers than the recognition of these tax benefits in VAT. On the other hand, it is striking that the procedure followed and that the literal wording of Articles III and IV of the Agreement on Economic Matters has not been altered. These tax benefits have simply ceased to apply because the Catholic Church has renounced them (Llamazares Calzadilla 2014a, p. 84).

The exchange of notes of 29 March 2023 makes public the Holy See’s renunciation of the exemption from special contributions collected because of the benefit obtained by the citizen obliged to pay it, with a public work, or for the establishment, or enlargement, of new public services (contribuciones especiales), which was recognized in Article IV.1.d of the 1979 Agreement on Economic Matters.

In this regard, several reflections may be made:

(1)

There was, in our opinion, no doubt in this respect, the Catholic Church was clearly entitled to this tax exemption, because the literal wording of Article IV.1.d of the 1979 Agreement on Economic Matters clearly established this. In other words, what the exchange of notes really does not resolve a doubt, but actually innovates in relation to the literal wording of what was previously agreed.

(2)

The economic amount of the tax has traditionally been of little relevance in quantitative terms, as there are many local councils that do not collect this type of tax when financing the carrying out of public works or the establishment or extension of public services, due to the difficulty of individualizing the specific benefit experienced by each owner of a property as a result of such actions by local corporations.

(3)

It should not be forgotten that the waiver referred to in the exchange of notes, as such, only affects the Catholic Church. The respective Agreements of 1992, with the Spanish Federation of Evangelical Entities, the Federation of Israelite Communities, and the Islamic Commission of Spain, continue to recognize this exemption in favor of these three religious denominations, insofar as Article 11.3.A of Laws 24, 25, and 26/1992 of 10 November 1992. It is not entirely true that there has been an equalization of the tax regime in this tax, since three of the four confessions with an agreement, if Laws 24, 25, and 26/1992 are not modified, will continue to enjoy this exemption, because this is established in their agreements (Suárez Pertierra 2023).

As long as the 1992 Agreements are not modified, we will be faced with the paradoxical scenario that evangelicals, Jews, and Muslims will have a tax regime for special contributions, which is more beneficial than that of the Catholic Church (which has renounced said exemption). Beyond the testimonial economic consequences of this specific case, this should encourage us to calmly reflect on the inconvenience of legislating through ad hoc agreements with confessions, and the need to replace them with common law regulations that apply equally to all religious groups.

Looking to the near future, it would be appropriate to reflect on the need to provide homogeneous legal coverage in the tax benefits regime to all registered confessions and not leave out those that have not had the opportunity to obtain the declaration of well-known roots so they may enjoy said tax benefits (for example, Hinduism, the Church of Scientology, the Taoist Union of Spain, or Sikhism).

We will have to be careful not to run the risk of creating a multi-denominational model (Tamayo 2023). The mere comparison of the tax regime of religious denominations to that of non-profit entities, however, is typical of secular states and fully compatible with the nature of the idea of neutrality inherent to the secularism of our constitutional model, although there are still loopholes to overcome, such as that of the tax allocation, or certain tax benefits, such as the exemptions in the real estate tax of the homes of ministers of religion, and orchards and gardens mentioned above.

Transparency in accountability and the mentalization of the faithful are the key foundations on which the financing of confessions should rest, independently of the state, which is not responsible for this task in a secular model. One of the best studies that has been published on Church accountability calculated that an improvement in its levels of transparency could increase the contribution of the faithful by up to 30% (Zalbidea González 2018, pp. 90–92). This would achieve a model more in line with the constitutional principles of secularism and equality. It is necessary for their full realization and development in ordinary legislation, something that, in our opinion, almost half a century after the entry into force of the Constitution, has not yet been achieved.

5. Religious Teaching in Schools, the Regime of Religion Teachers, and Charter Schools

5.1. The Subject of Religion in the Educational System

Only religious groups with an agreement may teach religion in schools. How can the principle of equality and non-discrimination be explained in regard to citizens who do not belong to any of the four confessions that have signed a cooperation agreement with the state (Celador Angón 2025; Leturia Navaroa 2023, 2024)?

On the other hand, it is at least doubtful that it is the responsibility of the state to assume dogmatic religious indoctrination of its citizens (something that occurs in relation to confessions with agreement), in a state in which no confession has a state character.

It is essential to distinguish between religion understood as a cultural fact and as dogma, because, as a cultural fact, religion could and should be a subject of study by all students. But it is not possible if we consider religion as a dogma. We understand that the religious indoctrination of its citizens is not a responsibility of the state, but of religious denominations and families—in the latter case, with respect to their own children (Cubillas Recio 1997; Asensio Sánchez 2014; Celador Angón 2013; Loyola Sergio 2023, pp. 331–80).

5.2. Legal Status of Religion’s Teachers

The Sentence of the Spanish Constitutional Court 38/2007 of 15 February legitimized the non-renewal by the ecclesiastical authorities of the contract of a Catholic religion teacher, for maintaining relations with a person other than her husband, from whom she was separated. It is the result of a poor weighing of the rights at stake, which emptied the teacher’s right to her personal and family life of content.

In a second case, the Spanish Constitutional Court, in its Sentence 128/2007 of June 4, approved the non-renewal of a religion teacher, a former priest and member of the Pro-Optional Celibacy Movement, because his status as a married priest was made public when a photograph with his family was published in the local press. Until then, he had been allowed to teach without any problems. This matter reached the ECHR, which in its ruling Fernández Martínez v. Spain, dated 15 May 2012 (and the subsequent ruling by the Grand Chamber of 12 June 2014), upheld the dismissal, prompting a dissenting opinion by Judge Saiz Arnaiz, considering that there had been a poor weighing of the rights at stake, which emptied the professor’s right to his personal and family life of content. Since the publication of his status as a married priest (a circumstance already previously known by the bishopric, and—let’s not be cynical—by the vast majority of the local population, since he taught in two intermediate-sized towns where it is not difficult for this information to be in the public domain) rendered a professor who had been one until that point unfit to teach, this led to a disproportionate solution against him.

However, the Spanish Constitutional Court in the Sentence 51/2011 of 14 April granted constitutional protection to a religion teacher, who lost her job when the bishop learned that she had contracted a civil marriage with a divorced person, which, according to the Constitutional Court, does not affect her dogmatic knowledge or her pedagogical skills (which, incidentally, were not in question in the cases analyzed in Sentences 38/2007 and 128/2007), and recalls that “religion teachers… will enjoy the fundamental and legal rights that as workers are recognized in our legal system in an undeniable manner, based on a criterion of maximum equality, albeit with modulations resulting from the singularity of religious teaching”.31

The fact that the applicant has contracted a civil marriage is completely unrelated to her teaching activity, since the Bishopric does not allege in any way that in her teaching as a teacher of Catholic religion and morals she has deviated in the slightest from the content of such teaching as established by the Catholic Church.32

We fully agree with the dissenting opinion of magistrate Tomás y Valiente, in the Sentence of the Spanish Constitutional Court 5/1981 of 13 February, according to which the exercise of fundamental rights or public freedoms, or conduct carried out outside the school institution, could not be a just cause for termination of the contract of any teacher.

The public authorities pay the salaries of staff whose recruitment and renewal do not depend on them, but on the ecclesiastical authorities, who, at their free will, can refuse to grant the venia docendi in a supposedly secular country. This model does not pass the slightest filter from the point of view of the principle of secularism (Celador Angón 2012, pp. 107–42; Llamazares Calzadilla 2014a, p. 88).

5.3. Public Versus Private Schools

The particular Spanish system of private charter schools, which especially benefits the Catholic Church,33 is based on the commitment to provide compulsory education free of charge, which was already included in Article 51 of the Organic Law of the Right of Education, and is reiterated in Article 116 of the Organic Law on Education. Whether this is a reality in practice is another matter, since much could be written about the educational authorities’ discretion when it comes to approving the collection of fees for complementary and extracurricular activities, and other school services, of a voluntary nature (sic), and to what extent this free provision is real and effective, or is it merely limited to the mere printed letter of the Law.

It is worth questioning the opacity that seems to be conveyed by the system of teacher selection in private grant-aided schools, through a process in which a wide margin of autonomy is left to the head of the centre when it comes to hiring teachers, following a procedure in which the criteria of merit, ability, and publicity (of which Article 103.3 of the Constitution speaks) could very well be reinforced, as occurs in public schools, by limiting the possibility of hiring teachers to only those teachers who have passed the corresponding national exam, since it is not in vain that their salaries are also financed with taxpayers’ money.

It would also be worth reflecting on the asymmetrical effort made by public and state-subsidized public schools when it comes to enrolling foreign migrant pupils.

The situation in Navarre, denounced in a 2003 Ombudsman’s Report, showed a serious concentration of immigrant pupils in four public schools: Víctor Pradera, Ave María, Cardenal Indulain, and San Jorge, where almost 50% of them were enrolled. It was particularly striking that the public school Víctor Pradera, which had 78.6% of its pupils of an immigrant origin, was located in the same area as the private subsidised school Santa Catalina Labouré, which had only 22.2% of foreign pupils. This leads us to think that the geographical factor is not the only reason for the concentration of the immigrant population in the classrooms of public schools. These statistics reflect a worrying reality: the risk of de facto producing, according to the Ombudsman of the autonomous community of Navarre, “a process of marginalisation which, if measures are not taken, could lead to situations of segregation and social and educational discrimination with very serious consequences for social coexistence because they would incorporate ethnic and racial components. These schools can become veritable educational ghettos, where only pupils from the most disadvantaged social minorities are enrolled. This would limit their real possibilities of integration and social promotion, condemning them to a situation of marginalisation”.34

It is worth noting the existing disproportion, which can lead to public schools becoming real ghettos for migrant pupils. For instance, in the academic year 2023–24 (the last year with data), 8,337,537 students were registered in non-university studies, of whom 5,574,504 students were attending public schools (66.86%), and 2,763,033 were enrolled in private schools (33.13%).35 Nevertheless, in the case of the 1,066,875 foreign students, 805,671 attended public schools (75.51%), and only 261,204 attended private schools (24.48%).36

6. Registration by Catholic Bishops of Ecclesiastically Owned Properties

Until the promulgation of Law 13/2015 of 24 June on the Reform of the Mortgage Law, approved by Decree of 8 February 1946, and of the consolidated text of the Real Estate Cadastre Law, approved by Royal Legislative Decree 1/2004 of 5 March,37 Article 206 of the Mortgage Law and Article 304 of its Regulations have been equating the Church Catholic with the state, the province, the municipality, and the public law corporations, by facilitating the registration of real estate property of ecclesiastical ownership, authorizing the diocesans bishops to issue the relevant certifications, and thus assimilating them to authentic public officials.

This privilege had its origin in the aftermath of the disentailment of ecclesiastical property dictated in the 19th century by the Spanish Minister of Finance, Pascual Madoz, as a result of the Law of 1 May 1855, and the attempts to heal the wounds by means of the Agreement–Law of 4 April 1860, which gave rise to the legitimization of the bishops to carry out a series of possessory certifications of the property that remained outside the disentailment. This system of possessory certifications was included in Articles 24 to 31 of the Mortgage Regulation of 6 August 1915. The disappearance of possession from the Land Registry, with the mortgage reform of 1944, led to the transformation of the possessory certifications into domain certifications.

Although the disentailment legislation was repealed by the Law of 23 April 1964, the regulation of the procedure for the registration of Church property in the Real Estate Register, for which there was no title of ownership, remained in force. The reform of the Land Registry Regulations by Royal Decree 1867/1998 of 4 September 1998 abolished the exception contained in Article 5.4 of the Mortgage Regulations (which provided that temples destined for Catholic worship were excluded from registration) but missed a golden opportunity to modify Article 206 of the Mortgage Law and Article 304 of its Regulations, which equated Catholic diocesans with true public officials, despite the forceful wording of Article 16.3 CE, which states that no religious groups shall have a state character.

Our perplexity is enormous if we take into account that the Ruling of the Constitutional Court 340/1993 of 16 November declared the unconstitutionality of Article 76.1 of the Consolidated Text of the Urban Rental Law of 1964, which equated the Catholic Church with the state, the province, the municipality, and the public law corporations, exempting it from the obligation to justify the need to occupy the assets that were leased. The Spanish Constitutional Court had specified in that sentence that Article 16.3 of the Constitution prohibits any confusion between religious functions and state functions.

The Sentence of the European Court of Human Rights of 4 November 2014, in the case SA del Ucieza against Spain, addressed a case of double registration, motivated by the second registration of a property following a certification of ownership issued by the bishop of Palencia, dated 22 December 1994, to the detriment of the registered right of the SA del Ucieza, whose right dated back to 22 December 1841 (Moreno Antón 2015, p. 29).

The ECHR38 questioned why Article 206 of the Spanish Mortgage Law refers only to the bishops of the dioceses of the Catholic Church and excludes representatives of other confessions, and shows its strangeness because the diocesan certification has the same value as the certificates issued by public officials, who are invested with prerogatives of public power, as well as because the registration procedure of Article 206 did not have any limitation in time, and could be done in an untimely manner, without prior publicity and ignoring the principle of legal certainty. A ruling in which, it points out, neither the Supreme Court,39 nor the Property Registrar,40 nor the trial and appeal courts,41 nor even the Spanish legislator himself,42 were portrayed very well (Moreno Antón 2015, p. 34).

Law 13/2015 of 24 June on the Reform of the Mortgage Law has resolved this problem, but it will be very difficult to reverse the tens of thousands of registrations that have already been carried out.

Its Fifth Final Provision provides for the entry into force of the reform of Article 206 of the Mortgage Act, on the day of its publication in the Official Journal, as a result of Amendment 108 introduced by the Popular Parliamentary Group, which removed the initial vacatio legis of 1 year provided for in the bill submitted to Parliament, as it was considered to be excessive (sic). Nowadays, since 26 June 2015, this possibility of property registration by means of certificates of ownership issued by Catholic dioceses has come to an end.

7. Regime for Opening Places of Worship

Some municipal urban planning places extraordinary obstacles in the way of the establishment of new buildings of worship for minority religious denominations, by approving regulations that shield municipal space, such as limiting the establishment of new places of worship in spaces that are less than 500 m from another existing one, as is the case of the Special Plan for the Adaptation of Uses of Torrejón de Ardoz, approved on 29 September 2008.

The ordinance regulating establishments of public attendance, approved on 27 May 2005, by the Lleida City Council, required that the premises intended for worship be restricted to a certain floor or level of a building, and that the streets where the places of worship were established be more than 10 m wide and have sidewalks at least three meters wide. It also stipulated that a place of worship could not exist within 100 m of another place of worship, and the maximum capacity allowed in a place of worship could never exceed 100 people (except in an isolated building), etc.43

This norm aroused opposition from minority confessions, particularly evangelical communities, who achieved the annulment of this very restrictive regulation on places of worship, as decreed by Sentence No. 548/2009 of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (Administrative Litigation Chamber, Section 5; M. García Ruiz 2013, p. 401).

It should be added that minority religious denominations have complained about the difficulties derived from the regulations for the opening and authorization of places of worship, especially in the case of some town councils that apply very different criteria among themselves, the high price of land, the restrictive attitude of certain local administrations, which is manifested, for example, in a strict application of regulations on noise or the inadequate location of some places of worship (such as in industrial estates and other unsuitable areas), and the lack of reservation of land for building places of worship owned by minority religious denominations (M. García Ruiz 2013, p. 406).

The need is beginning to be felt for state regulations in this matter, which would reduce the level of discretion exercised by municipal administration, so that the minimum conditions guaranteeing the establishment of places of worship for all religious confessions in terms of material equality throughout the national territory could be regulated (Castro Jover 2007, p. 47).

This feeling is especially a result of the reaction of certain neighbourhood groups against the opening of mosques or Islamic oratories, and the risk of arbitrary municipal denials of permits. Such behaviors are, moreover, not always unrelated to electoral interests, so that the problem cannot be satisfactorily resolved by applying the selfish aphorism of not in my back yard, that is, yes, but not here—sometimes based on the erroneous belief that this would increase citizen insecurity or crime, due to diffuse racist and/or xenophobic prejudices (Aznar García 2015, p. 13; Torres Gutiérrez 2013, p. 123).

The autonomous community of Catalonia has gone ahead, approving the first law on this topic, the Law 16/2009 of 22 July44 on worship centers in Catalonia (Cañivano Salvador 2015, pp. 1–57; Guardia Hernández 2012; 2015a, pp. 1–27; Leal Adorna 2011; Llaquet de Entrambasaguas 2011; Moreno Antón 2008; Rodríguez García 2011; 2014, pp. 499–519; Seglers Gómez-Quintero 2006; Vidal Gallardo 2014, p. 30), which establishes the obligation to foresee religious uses in municipal urban planning plans (Article 4), and the subjection of places of worship to obtaining urban planning licenses (Articles 8 to 14). The Basque Country recently passed a second regional legislation, the Law of the Basque Country 8/2023 of 29 June 2023,45 on places or places of worship and religious diversity in the autonomous community of the Basque Country.

The regulatory dispersion had been criticized when the Catalan Law was a mere project, so that, having anticipated Catalonia and Basque Country to legislate in this matter, the opportunity to enact a state law on places of worship that would have regulated the basic conditions to guarantee the equal exercise of the fundamental rights of citizens has been lost (Castro Jover 2007, pp. 11, 25, and 29).

8. A de Lege Ferenda Proposal: The Need to Opt for a Model of Common Legislation

The Organic Law on Religious Freedom 7/1980 of 5 July has produced positive effects, avoiding dangerous religious wars. The unsatisfactory answer to the religious question during the Second Spanish Republic, and the negative experience of the Spanish Civil War and its consequences—the long 40-year dictatorship of General Franco, helped to give a better solution to this problem during the democratic period opened in 1978.

We cannot overlook the significant protectionist content of Spanish legislation regarding the recognition and protection of religious minorities, nor underestimate the enormous step forward represented by the 1992 Agreements. However, this cannot make us forget the need to consider the situation of other religious minorities that lack a cooperation agreement with the state, nor ignore the advantages of adopting a common law regime for all religious denominations. It would be necessary to overcome a system of agreements, especially the one that exists with the Catholic Church, in which it is enough for one of the parties—for example, the Church—to adopt an immobile position, while the other, the state, has only two options: either resigned submission or being accused of violating the agreement.

It is necessary to consider the situation of religious minorities that lack a cooperation agreement with the state, and the benefits of adopting a common law regime for all religious confessions, with which the principle of equality of all citizens and the neutrality of the state in this matter would be fully safeguarded. It would be necessary to overcome a system of agreements and adopt a common law model that applies equally to all religious confessions (Navarro Valls 2012; Polo Sabau 2014, p. 50; Loyola Sergio 2024, p. 541).

The Portuguese model has evolved through recent legislative reforms toward a common legal model that tends to significantly reduce the distance between the legal regime of the Catholic Church and that of minority confessions, especially those that have achieved administrative recognition of their presence in Portugal, thereby obtaining practically all of the rights that in Spain or Italy are reserved for confessions with a cooperation agreement with the state, by the mere verification of their presence during 30 years in Portugal, or 60 abroad (García García 2013, pp. 53–84; González Sánchez 2013, pp. 1–36; Llamazares Fernández 2002, pp. 523–52; Rossell Granados 2009, pp. 1–37; Torres Gutiérrez 2010; Torres Gutiérrez 2014, p. 41; Vidal Gallardo 2013, pp. 273–302).

On the table is the risk of an exponential multiplication of the number of possible interlocutors to be addressed by the public administration, which is the main risk presented by the Portuguese model.

Royal Decree 593/2015 of 3 July, clearly Portuguese-inspired, has undoubtedly represented a step forward with the objectification of the requirements for obtaining recognition of well-known roots in Spain, significantly reducing the administration’s margin of discretion, although a second step has yet to be taken, which would be to give full content to this declaration of roots in Spain, recognising the rights that are currently only enjoyed by those confessions that have signed a cooperation agreement with the state. We cannot overlook the Spanish legislator’s wisdom in initiatives such as facilitating access for denominations with a declaration of well-known roots to a seat on the Advisory Commission on Religious Freedom, as a result of Royal Decree 932/2013 of 29 November, or the state recognition of marriage in religious form for those denominations with a declaration of well-known roots, following the entry into force of Law 15/2015 of 2 July 2015 on Voluntary Jurisdiction, which undoubtedly go in the right direction (Vidal Gallardo 2024a). However, there are still sensitive issues such as the granting of tax benefits and other rights that only confessions with an agreement enjoy.

To facilitate a French common legislative model (which is one of the most refined46 cases of secularism in comparative law), which seeks to build a common destiny, on the basis of living together that is respectful of the diversity of identities (Y. García Ruiz 2014, pp. 130–31; Calvo Espiga 2014, p. 75; Loyola Sergio 2025, p. 43), it would be advisable to abandon the channels of Article 7 of the Organic Law on Religious Freedom and give way to a new legislation that is completely unilateral (and sufficiently guaranteeing) by the state (Llamazares Calzadilla 2014b, p. 323; Suárez Pertierra 2014, p. 248).

Although this may only remain in the world of utopia and may never be reflected in positive law, it is still covered by a dense and heavy mantle of confessionalism, incompatible with the subtle lightness of secularism, which allows the state to position itself neutrally in the complex world of freedom of conscience and religious beliefs, where human beings try to find answers to the latest questions that arise, and opt for one or another option in the world of ideas and beliefs.

A model of common legislation of general applicability to all the religious groups will reduce the actual inequalities of the Spanish model of relations between the state and religious groups. This solution will eliminate the risk of discrimination and social exclusion of some religious minorities and will focus on a more inclusive society.