Eduardo González
The Government, at the proposal of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has posthumously awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit to Carlota Bustelo, a Socialist member of parliament during the constituent legislature of 1977-1979, who died on October 16 at the age of 85, for her tireless work in favor of equality and freedom for women.
Carlota Bustelo was one of the “mothers” of the 1978 Constitution, and today’s Spain is “the fruit of the tireless work of women like her, who made equality and freedom their cause,” declared the Government spokesperson, Pilar Alegría, at the press conference following the Council of Ministers meeting last Tuesday.
The Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit is an award given to those who provide or have provided outstanding service to the State. According to the royal decree, it recognizes “the civic virtues of civil servants in the service of the State, as well as the outstanding services of Spanish and foreign citizens for the benefit of the Nation.”
A graduate in Political Science, Bustelo joined the University Socialist Group (ASU) in 1957. After spending some years in exile in France, she returned to Madrid in 1965 and began her clandestine activism within the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) in 1973. In 1975, she was arrested twice, and in December 1976, she was a delegate for the Madrid Socialist Federation to the 27th PSOE Congress, held in the capital, where she presented a paper on women.
She was elected as a PSOE deputy for Madrid in the first democratic elections held in June 1977 and held her seat until January 1979, when Parliament was dissolved. When Felipe González’s first socialist government was formed at the end of 1982, she joined the General Directorate for Women and, in December 1983, was appointed director of the newly created Women’s Institute. She remained at its head until July 1988, when she became Undersecretary of the Ministry of Social Welfare (later Social Affairs) under Minister Matilde Fernández.
After leaving the Ministry, she was a member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the European Women’s Lobby, and the Women’s Foundation. She died in Madrid on October 15, 2025.
