After ten consecutive years as Europe's leader for LGBTIQ+ rights, Malta has now dropped to second place in ILGA-Europe's updated 2026 Rainbow Map index.
ILGA-Europe's Rainbow Map is an annual ranking in which 49 countries across the European continent are judged on how their laws and policies impact LGBTI people's human rights. The map ranks each country under seven categories: equality and non-discrimination; family; hate crime and hate speech; legal gender recognition; intersex bodily integrity; civil society space; and asylum.
In this annual index, European countries are each given a percentage score with 0% indicating discrimination and a gross violation of human rights and 100% indicating full equality and respect of human rights.
Between 2025 and 2026, Malta's overall score has dipped by 1.1% - from 88.83% to 87.73%. This is the first year since 2015 that Malta can no longer call itself the European champion for LGBTIQ+ rights.
Spain now sits atop ILGA-Europe's updated Rainbow Map with a score of 88.70%.
At the bottom of this year's Rainbow Map are Russia (2.00%) and Azerbaijan (2.25%). The lowest-ranking EU Member State is Romania (19%).
The former Labour Party MEP and gay rights activist Cyrus Engerer said online that Malta's fall from the top of ILGA-Europe's Rainbow Map "should not surprise anyone." He stated that "progress on LGBTIQ equality in Malta has effectively stalled over the past four years" and that this updated index confirms this observation.
Engerer said that despite Malta wearing its number one ranking as a badge of honour, "somewhere along the way, the badge became the entire ambition."
He added that Spain has leapfrogged Malta due to the "political courage" it has demonstrated in practice. He said that to lead ILGA-Europe's rankings, one requires political courage - which means "legislating boldly, speaking loudly, and not flinching when the conversation gets uncomfortable. It means showing up for LGBTIQ people not just at home, but everywhere."
The ex-MEP said that "being genuinely pro-equality means pushing for it beyond your own borders" and, for instance, saying something while at the discussion table with foreign leaders; in this example, he singled out Italy's Giorgia Meloni.
Engerer said that truly being pro-equality "means denouncing Donald Trump's systematic attacks on transgender people, loudly and without qualification rather than nominating him for the Nobel peace prize."
"It means treating every LGBTIQ person on Maltese soil with dignity, whether they carry a Maltese surname or whether they have fled a country where their very existence is criminalised," Engerer continued.
He noted that there exists a disconnect between the Maltese government's rhetoric on championing LGBTIQ+ rights and reality.
"I have lost count of the number of times I have personally been told, in one form or another, to be 'forever grateful for the rights we have given you.' I have heard it more times than I should have. And every single time, it revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of what rights actually are," he said.
"They are not gifts. They are not concessions handed down by the generous or the politically convenient. They are universal, inherent, and indivisible from every other human right. No government gives you your humanity. You are born with it, and this should apply to all human beings, whether born in Malta or not," the former PL MEP stated.
Engerer said that while Malta can reclaim leadership in this regard next year or beyond, "it will take more than nostalgia for a ranking," but politicians who are willing to safeguard equality and human rights, even when doing so is unpopular.
Engerer concluded that he hopes the country gets this kind of leadership after this election.