The Senate hosts the presentation of the 2025 Catalejo Awards, granted by the Spanish Human Rights Observatory
The event was attended by Pere Granados, mayor of Salou, the city that will host the 2026 Catalejo Awards
The emblematic Hall of Lost Steps in the Senate was the setting for the presentation of the fourth Catalejo Awards, corresponding to 2025, awarded by the Spanish Human Rights Observatory.
The welcome address was given by Mario Rigau, president of the Observatory, who expressed his special thanks to the first vice-president of the Senate, Javier Maroto, for the opportunity to hold this event in the Hall of Lost Steps of the Senate Palace in Madrid.
Review of activities
During his speech, Rigau took stock of the year since the previous awards were presented at the Carmen Thyssen Museum in Malaga and highlighted that the Observatory has opened channels of dialogue with the General Council of the Judiciary, the Civil Guard, the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court, among other institutions.
Referring to the Observatory's activities over the last year, Rigau recalled that ‘we have organised events in Toledo, with the University of Castilla-La Mancha, on Paralympic sport; with the Madrid Bar Association, on Artificial Intelligence; we have been speakers and collaborators at events and conferences organised by the Civil Guard, as well as by various organisations and media outlets’.
The president of the Observatory recalled its beginnings, at a meeting held at the Casino de la Gran Vía in Madrid on 4 February 2022, Human Fraternity Day: ‘We were little more than a dozen people with a project that we did not know would come to fruition. Today we have reached our maximum number of members’.
Rigau reviewed the main premises that guide the Observatory's activity and stressed that ‘we give preference to everyday human rights, those that are invisible until adversity strikes and makes them visible. We want to defend the exercise of our daily lives without upsets.’
Next edition: Salou
Finally, the president of the Observatory announced that the next Catalejo Awards ceremony will take place in Salou and thanked the mayor of the city, Pere Granados, for his presence in the Senate: ‘When I proposed it, the applause was unanimous, because it is an exceptional destination. But what most endorsed the candidacy was the personal figure of the mayor, Pere Granados.’
Granados himself spoke at the end of the event and stressed that ‘Salou has an incredible cultural wealth. We have more than 31,000 inhabitants, from over a hundred different nationalities. In addition, we are the second municipality on the Mediterranean coast in terms of the number of visitors during the summer season: more than two million’.
The mayor pointed out that ‘our priority is the quality of life and well-being of people. Without this, politics is not justified. And human rights are fundamental both from the point of view of their defence and their exercise.’
Granados referred to the various individual and collective inclusion policies and initiatives that are underway and concluded by saying that ‘Salou is a healthy municipality that works for sustainability.’
Round table
The Catalejos Awards ceremony also featured a round table discussion entitled ‘Reasons to be a healthy, sustainable and supportive company’, with the participation of Félix Peinado, director of the International Labour Organisation in Spain; Theresa Zabell, president of the Ecomar Foundation; and María Sanabria, vice-chancellor of the University of Alcalá. Patricio Sánchez, deputy director of the Galician Economic Forum and member of the Observatory, acted as moderator.
In his speech, Peinado proposed adding a fourth “s” to the title of the round table: ‘healthy, sustainable, supportive and also social’ and outlined the main reasons for companies to adopt these qualities: ‘for strategic profitability, because of regulations and because we should, for ethical and moral reasons. If we are ethical in our daily lives, we must also be ethical in our working relationships’.
Peinado explained the tools available to the ILO to address this social challenge and concluded with a quote from Pope Francis: ‘Let us be protagonists of change and not spectators.’
For her part, Theresa Zabell pointed out that ‘the Ecomar Foundation is a sustainable, healthy and supportive company in the third sector, and has been managed as a company for 26 years.’ The double Olympic sailing medallist recalled that during her sporting career she would go out sailing and see the sea full of rubbish: ‘I wondered why nobody was doing anything about it and, when I finished my career, I decided to become someone who did something. Ecomar was founded in March 1999 and is the leading foundation in the care of the marine world.’
Zabell explained that the Foundation's activity is carried out through four pillars: education in schools and through a digital platform; training for children learning water sports; coastal clean-ups; and science. ‘We need to understand what is happening in the sea in order to be more effective in solving it.’
María Sanabria argued that "Spain is one of the most caring countries in the world, as demonstrated by data such as organ transplant rates and the value we place on family, which is our safety net in the face of any adversity. It is also a fantastic country in which to grow old and a country whose companies are working towards sustainability.
Award ceremony
The presentation of the commitment awards, badges and prizes was conducted by Francisco López, president of the Catalejo Awards jury.
María Sanabria took to the stage to receive her award as a member of the Observatory; Luis Deus, from Lad Consultoría y Asesoría, and Raúl Rojas and Javier López, from Écija Abogados, received the Badges of Honour and Gratitude.
The Corporate Association of Healthy Companies (ACES) and the Clece Group received awards for their commitment to human rights and sustainable development goals.
The winners in the various categories were then presented in the following order:
Raquel Blasco (Health and Medicine); Karmen Garrido (media, proposed by Javier Fernández Arribas, director of Atalayar); Ángel Juárez (environment); Coca-Cola Spain (company and economic activity); the Castelldefels Futsal Club (sports and health category); the Castilla-La Mancha Regional Delegation of CaixaBank (company and economic activity); the Spanish Motorcycle Section of the International Police Association (security and defence category); the ANAED Foundation (health and medicine); the Celta de Vigo Foundation (sport and health); the Civil Guard Command of Tarragona (security and defence); and the Pontifical Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem (international category).
Finally, the 2024 Catalejo Award in the special category was presented to the Provincial Council of Malaga, which was unable to receive it at the previous edition. The award was collected by the Vice-President of the Provincial Council, Antonia Jesús Ledesma.
