This summer the pools have been filled with a new component. And we are not referring to the human feces located in several swimming pools in Toledo, which requires them to be evacuated and immediate treatment carried out. We are talking about the burkini, a garment that has been the springboard to expel three women that they were bathing in two different pools. All under a regulation that does not mention the word “burkini” not once.
Burgos and its own rules. The facts, which follow: staff from El Plantío and San Amaro prevent three women from bathing. Two wore burkinis. The third was wearing a rashguarda technical sun protection shirt that is also used by athletes and people with skin problems. The case, to begin with, already mixes two different garments under the same label.
The regulations say this: swimsuit only, street clothing or shoes prohibited. Jumping into a pool with boots is dangerous, of course. But if the regulation allows lycra or neoprene – only with express medical authorization and an expiration of six months – and does not mention the burkini, is there a legal loophole? A priori it is similar, by interpretation, to street clothes.
The mayor comes out in favor. Cristina Ayala, mayor for the PP, supports your staff: It has been limited to complying with current regulations, the same as previous years. And they have taken the matter to the Sports Facilities Council, where PP, PSOE and Vox will have to establish a position. It is not the first friction of the year: in February, Vox and PP They have already agreed to prohibit access to municipal buildings with a burqa or niqab, for security and identification reasons. The PSOE responded by accusing Vox of fueling Islamophobia. Same script, two months later, with the swimsuit.
At the regional level, the government pact between PP and Vox in Castilla y León It also prohibits the burqa and the niqab in the offices of the Board. The argument: incompatibility with “security, personal identification and the basic principles of coexistence.” The burkini leaves the face, hands and feet exposed. Neither the pact nor the Burgos regulations resolve whether that excludes him from the case.
Lack of legal framework. If we compare, for example, with BelgiumSpain does not have a state or regional law on the burkini. There is also no ruling on its use in public swimming pools or beaches. The void is filled by each city council with its own regulations, and each lifeguard with its own reading, who in the end are the ones who raise the alarm because they are the ones at the poolside, next to the ticket takers and the hired cleaning staff.
The underlying legal argument is Law 15/2022, comprehensive for equal treatment and non-discrimination. Any rule that discriminates based on religion is null and void. The available legal analysis maintains that, if the fabric is designed for bathing and complies with health regulations, prohibiting it from a woman for religious reasons would be discriminatory. Let us remember, by the way, that the veil is not synonymous with Islam. A garment does not speak of a person’s origin.
What have the neighbors done?. Within Castilla y León itself, the reading changes from city to city. In León, when asked by Vox, the PSOE defended total permissiveness: the burkini is a sports garment approved by federations, it is made with the same technical fabrics as a full-length swimsuit or a sun protection shirt, and there is no objective hygienic difference that justifies different treatment. In Salamanca, on the other hand, the city council expelled a woman last summer for the same reasons, citing hygiene. Burgos, León, Salamanca: to each his naked bread.
Outside of Castilla y León, Lleida is the opposite extreme. Since 2019 it explicitly allows the burkini and topless in their municipal swimming pools, with signs that specify it. In 2023, the Generalitat sent a letter to all Catalan city councils: banning the burkini, just like banning toplessness, excludes part of the population from access to certain services and violates free choice over one’s own body. The extreme right often errs on the side of confusing.
Same law, read backwards. France, which does have jurisprudence, offers a useful nuance. In 2016, the French Council of State knocked down several municipal sides that banned the burkini without proving a real threat to public order. But in 2022 the same court stopped Grenoble for the opposite reason: the city council had modified its regulations to expressly allow the burkini, and the Council of State considered that this exception, designed to satisfy a religious demand, broke the neutrality of the public service and equality between users.
In June 2025, a court confirmed the definitive annulment of that article. It is the French doctrine, summarized: a general and neutral rule on the swimsuit is maintained; an explicit exception, in any sense, no. Nine years to resolve something that in Burgos they have fully decided in a couple of days.
The Burgos regulation, in that particular aspect, is more similar to the model that the French courts support: it does not name the burkini, neither to prohibit it nor to allow it. Only requires a swimsuit. Spain, at the moment, does not have a court that confirms it. And that is why a municipal council is deciding it, with jurisprudence but lack of regulations.
Images | Flickr (Miet)
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