Ángeles Muñoz, mayor of Marbella (Málaga, 159,000 inhabitants), earned six times more in 2024 than in 2020. She went from 14,800 euros to 95,465 euros last year, according to the Salary Information of Administrative Employees (ISPA). The exceptional increase in his municipal salary has to do with the origin of his income. Until 2023, the People’s Party councilor was also a senator, so the Senate paid her her main salary, and the Council paid only for her participation in plenary sessions and commissions. That year, after the announcement of the general election, he left his post in the Upper House – which was investigating the origin of his assets – because he devoted himself exclusively to the City Council. Of course, thanks to the majority she has in the municipality of Malaga, Muñoz has approved a salary increase that places her as the eighth highest paid mayor in Spain – the first of a city that is not a provincial capital – with a higher salary than that of Pedro Sánchez or the president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla.
Muñoz became mayor of Marbella in 2007, soon after the explosion Malaysia case and a management committee chaired by Diego Martín Reyes took charge of the City Council. He has governed ever since, except for a brief two-year hiatus between 2015 and 2017, when socialist José Bernal took office. In 2015 she was appointed senator, so it was the Senate that paid her salary – which at the time was around 80 thousand euros. In 2017 she managed to return to the post of mayor after a motion of no confidence, but retained the income of the Upper House while the city council – without exclusive dedication – only received daily allowances for participation in commissions and plenary sessions, a figure that varies between 14,000 and 19,000 euros each of these years, according to ISPA data.
In 2022, Muñoz was embroiled in major controversy after the National Court linked her husband – the now deceased Lars Gunnar Broberg – and her stepson, Joakim Broberg, in an investigation related to drug trafficking, a plot attempted last spring, when the Drug Prosecutor’s Office requested 18 years in prison for Broberg. Days after the police operation became public, Muñoz updated his asset declaration before the Senate. In the document it announced that it will now own 100% of three companies of which it previously held 50%. The same thing happened with a house purchased in 2005 in Sweden, of which until then he had only owned half and which then became his complete property.
The president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, then spoke of his assets, which included two other properties in Malaga and another in Madrid. “I don’t know the origins, but I’m sure they’re legal and legal,” he said. The councilor refused to give explanations until a Senate commission, promoted by the PSOE, decided to investigate her properties. She then assured that the reported changes were due to a “stock donation” from her husband in 2020 and that they were not informed about it until 2022 because they let her know that way. “There is absolutely no irregularity,” he stressed.
A year later, in 2023, when Pedro Sánchez brought forward the general elections, the Cortes Generales were dissolved and Muñoz left her seat in the Senate and never took it back since the Popular Party did not include her in the candidacy for the 23-J. He then decided to dedicate himself exclusively to the Marbella City Council, approving a few weeks later – with the support of the PP, the abstention of the PSOE and the local party OSP, and the refusal of Vox – a salary increase to 92,928 euros. The evolution of the salary according to the CPI allowed him to earn, already in 2024, 95,465 euros, as shown by the data from the Salary Information of Administrative Positions, which indicate that his last salary, in 2014, was 54,948 euros, i.e. 33% less.
The councilor assured that the reference to calculate this figure comes from the General State Budgets and the remuneration regime of the Provincial Council of Malaga based on the number of inhabitants, considering that Marbella is a “big city”, as she underlined in the urgent plenary session in which the modification was approved. The salary is higher than that received by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez (90,010), and that of the Government of Andalusia, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla (89,275 euros).
This figure places her, according to ISPA, as the eighth highest paid councilor in the entire country and the third in Andalusia, surpassed only by Seville – José Luis Sanz receives just 220 euros more than her – and Malaga – Francisco de la Torre receives only 36 euros more than Muñoz – even though the capital of Andalusia has 4.3 times more inhabitants than Marbella and Malaga 3.7 more. She is the mayor who earns the most in a city that is not the provincial capital, although she is closely followed by other tourist cities in Malaga such as Fuengirola (84,244.00 euros) or Torremolinos (69,721.53 euros). On the opposite path is Estepona, whose mayor, José María Martín Urbano, has received zero euros every year since he became mayor in 2011, as he is recognized as professionally compatible as a real estate registry agent.
