Spain will legalise gay unions, although it may not call them marriages, incoming prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said today.
However, he did not set a time-frame for the move.
"We are going to present a bill to set gay unions on the same footing as marriage," he said in an interview on Spain's Telecinco television channel.
"From a semantic point of view marriage may be a concept that does not cover this type of union, but it will have the same legal effects," he added.
During the outgoing centre-right government's two terms in office, opposition politicians in mainly Catholic Spain made several attempts to legalise same-sex marriage.
Mr Zapatero, who swept to a surprise victory in general elections on Sunday, made legalising gay unions one of his campaign pledges.
