BoT 571

 

Business over Tapas

A digest of this week's Spanish financial, political and social news aimed primarily at Foreign Property Owners:

Prepared by Lenox Napier.  Consultant: José Antonio Sierra

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February 20 2025            Nº 571

 

 

 

 

 

 

Editorial:

 

The Spanish voters are divided, as in most other countries where one is legally allowed to have an opinion, into the four blocks of far-left, left, right and far right. Even the small regional parties must march to this drum, while tending towards supporting the socialists in government (simply because the conservatives would consider their dissolution).

The old Ciudadanos party, which toothily claimed to be a centre party, was proved to be a crutch for the right, and it also showed us – once again – that no one wanted to be in the centre anyway.

My take is that the far left is, as always, too busy squabbling amongst themselves to ever get together to achieve much. They famously did it prior to and during the Civil War and (after being understandably quiet for the next forty years) haven’t achieved all that much since. The Conservative Media, the Judiciary, Church and Establishment all put a stop to their brightest star Pablo Iglesias – he of the ponytail – through lies, innuendo, bulos and lawfare.

In the socialist seats (a party with a lot of corruption cases in its history, particularly from Seville), another strong and intelligent man has risen to take the helm. He is truly a statesman and is well-considered in Europe, if less so here in Spain. Nevertheless, Pedro Sánchez and his government has done surprisingly well for the economy (rarely a strong point with the lefties) and is – compared with the other party bosses – the captain in the popularity stakes.

On the right, we have the party of Capital. Yet, they have a weak leader who is more prone to pointless attack than to mounting any useful opposition. The Right must defend the economy (and profits), but the economy is doing just fine. Could the PP do better in this important sphere? We remember the last time they were in power.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party recently voted against the increase in pensions (no doubt in a gesture towards fighting against rising costs) and promptly got a Black Mark from Spain’s better than ten million pensioners, and was obliged to reverse course in a second vote just a week later. The point of chastising the government is not always going to play well with the ordinary folk queuing up outside the bank or the employment office.

The chances are good that Feijóo will anyway soon be deposed in favour of Isabel Díaz Ayuso or possibly Juanma Moreno (both currently nursing some problems of their own).

If supporters of the Partido Popular tend to think more of their wallets than they do of mine, then the Vox crowd have a different and far more negative agenda based on hatred, fear and jealousy. This party, which has a soft spot for General Franco (and his international equivalents today), is slowly growing in popularity and now stands at around 15% in the polls.

If the ragbag of far-left groups must support the PSOE to keep the wolf from the door, then the Voxxers will be vital in any future election to putting the PP into power, and their price will be high.

Right now, a small but symptomatic headline comes from a tiny village in the forgotten province of Zamora. It appears that no one has given birth in Vega de Villalobos in the last eighteen years, but now everyone there is thrilled by a Happy Event. The ninety-one residents of the village are said to be delighted with the birth there of a baby boy.

But then a Vox deputy called Rocio de Meer (a good old Spanish family name if ever there was one) wrote on Twitter last week, as one does, complaining as usual about the foreign immigrants and to make her point she refers to the birth of the Vega de Villalobos child saying: ‘The future of Spain is dark’. See, the baby’s name is Ayoub (and not, I don’t know… Manolito). Worse still, she received 10,000 ‘likes’ for her efforts. The parents may be integrated, but they are still newcomers.

The leader of Vox is Santiago Abascal. He is also the president of ‘the Patriots for Europe’ clique in the European Commission and he has just held an international far-right fest in Madrid, with all the usual suspects in attendance, including Viktor Orban, Marine Le Pen, André Ventura, Matteo Salvini, Geert Wilders and Kevin Roberts: president of the sinister American Heritage Foundation (the ‘Project 25’ people).

Donald Trump received suitable adulation from all those present (as Europe waits for his tariffs to kick in).

The phrase Make Europe Great Again appeared on the rostrum during Vox’s ‘Cumbre de Patriotas’ (celebrating the utopian and largely fictionalised past of our continent, or are we thinking of Mussolini and his partners of ninety years ago?).

Apart from the music, I can’t think of a time when Europe was greater than it is now.

Thus Spain has its four political groups (plus some small and eccentric satellites). As for the large number of foreigners living in this marvellous country, 6,800,000 of us, well we don’t have the vote and, sad to say, we don’t count for much with the politicians.

Unless we misbehave of course.

Or have a baby.    

…...

Housing:

‘The latest figures from the Spanish Land Registry reveal that foreign buyers continued to play a leading role in the Spanish property market in 2024, with sales involving international purchasers increasing by 6% compared to the previous year. This marked the second-highest level on record, surpassed only by the post-pandemic surge in 2022.

In total, 92,958 sales involving a foreign buyer were recorded in 2024, representing a year-on-year increase of 6% and a 38% rise compared to the ten-year average…’ Item from Mark Stücklin’s Spanish Property Insight here.

Idealista has ‘Squatting and rising household costs top housing concerns for Spaniards

Concerns about increasing rents and housing laws are rising’.

‘Uncovering a Kazakh oligarch’s Spanish idyll. A reporter and photographers visited Timur Kulibayev’s sprawling Mediterranean coast estate as part of the “Caspian Cabals” project and discovered plush villas, high security and ambivalent neighbours’. The ICIJ reports.

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Tourism:

Whatever happened to the night trains in Spain? I remember climbing aboard in Almería and being deposited in Madrid’s Atocha at an early hour with time for breakfast before my meeting. From 20Minutos here: ‘The return of the 'Lusitania' is not just nostalgia: these are the reasons that would bring back the longed-for night train between Madrid and Lisbon’. From RTVE (June 2024) here: ‘…So after the night train service was disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Renfe decided to suspend it permanently once things were back to normal. The Ministry of Transport and Renfe argue that the night train was a commercial service, not a public service, meaning it had to be profitable, which it wasn't’.

El Cronista warns tourists to be aware of pickpockets operating in Spain (Barcelona is mentioned).

‘The new tourism law in Andalucía will include fines of up to 600,000 euros for illegal tourist accommodation. The law will allow town councils to plan the presence of tourist apartments, since in order to use a home for this purpose, a licence will need to be requested or a declaration of responsibility will need to be submitted to the local administration’. Details at La Opinión de Málaga here.

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Finance:

elDiario.es: ‘The Chinese giant TDG will enter Europe with a headquarters in Zaragoza, where it will invest 120 million euros over five years. The company, dedicated to manufacturing batteries and energy storage solutions, will create 800 jobs’. Meanwhile,  Reuters reports that ‘China said on Saturday it welcomes more Spanish companies to tap into and share opportunities in its large market, as well as China's economic transformation and development’.

‘How Spain’s radically different approach to migration helped its economy soar. As immigration has increased, GDP has surged and unemployment has fallen to lowest level since 2008’. An interesting item from The Guardian here. A second article from the newspaper says: ‘Why is Spain’s economy booming? Thanks to migration – which proves xenophobia doesn’t pay. With Spanish GDP growth leading Europe last year, diversity is making us richer – not only financially but culturally, too’. One point not raised by the article is the evident ease which Latin Americans have to assimilate when moving to Spain: the same language, the same Church and a relatively similar culture.

Video: ‘Spain Economy Booms: the envy of Europe and moaning Brexit Brits’. An Englishman wearing an unfortunate sweater makes some good points on YouTube here.

El Mundo writes of Spain’s wealthiest citizens. The richest of course being Amancio Ortega. ‘Another 25,000 million more for Ortega, who breaks records after Inditex's glorious year on the Stock Exchange. Ortega is expanding his portfolio of logistics warehouses and is making his debut in the parking business. In the last ten years he has collected 15,054 million euros in dividends from Inditex and has doubled his assets’. His current worth, says the newspaper, is just under 120,000 million euros (works out at about 3,000€ per person living in Spain).

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Politics:

The different polls give varied results regarding intention of vote. A summary of the latest polls is (always) available at Electrocracia here. Currently, they have the PP ahead of the PSOE by 6.4% (PP at 34.3 and PSOE at 27.9). El Español (paywall) says ‘Feijóo increases his lead over Sánchez to six points and the coalition government would lose 25 of its 152 deputies today’. El Huff Post has the latest poll from the CIS (known by detractors as ‘Tezano’s CIS’ due to its socialist bias): ‘The PSOE remains unstoppable in the CIS and rises almost two points in a month to 33.4%. The PP falls and would remain at 28.1%, with a difference between them of five points. Vox (13.3%) takes advantage of the decline of the Partido Popular and reaches its best record since June 2022’.

elDiario.es says ‘Sánchez doubles down on the ideological battle with the right and places Spain as an anti-Trumpist reference. In the Moncloa (the Presidential Residence) they accept the challenge that the impact of the new American administration represents as an opportunity to contrast the results of two antagonistic projects: the one represented by the Government and the one embodied by the PP and Vox’.

From Juanlu Sánchez at elDiario.es here: ‘The PP offers no opinion on Trump. In Spain, the PP remains undecided on Ukraine, tariffs and Trump in general. Feijóo's lack of positioning also means that the other party leaders do not have a clear line to follow. In addition, (to no one's surprise) Vox has aligned itself with Trump and blames Pedro Sánchez for the tariffs’.

According to some, Carles Puigdemont is insisting on a Government pardon for the disgraced Junts politician Laura Borràs (due to go down for 4.5 years for corruption) in exchange for continued support by his party. Or, to turn it around, Sánchez might insist on the Junts behaving themselves for the rest of the legislature in exchange for some ‘mercy’.

Referring to the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’, the Vox spokesman José María Figaredo sees Trump's proposal for Gaza as "reasonable": "The first signs of his policy in the area are good", he told the Cortes recently. What – as someone asks on Reddit – might his party say if Trump decided that Melilla and Ceuta should be summarily given to his Moroccan ally?

One leader whose reputation has not aged especially well is Felipe Gonzalez. Gabriel Rufián, the spokesperson for the ERC (and one of our best orators) says of him: ‘the greatest betrayer of the left in this country’ (with video). Gonzalez is always ready to criticise the current President of the Government (while praising Argentina’s Javier Milei).

…...

Gibraltar:

From El Huff Post here: ‘UK offers Gibraltar as key hub for a Mediterranean war. "In the event of a challenge to tactical superiority in the eastern Mediterranean, Gibraltar is likely to play a key role in defending the west and reasserting NATO's authority in the east," the British Ministry of Defence stressed’.

…...

Europe:

From The Guardian here. ‘Europe tries to shore up fragile unity as it realises it cannot rely on US. Leaders attend Paris summit for urgent talks on Ukraine after a week that showed how far values have diverged’. The last paragraph: ‘EU diplomats acknowledge the Trump administration’s brutally transactional, unashamedly ideological stance could splinter Europe’s already fragile unity. Whether or not it does, they say, could depend on the process of which Monday’s Paris meeting is but the first step’. We read that ‘The leaders of Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark and the European Union arrived at the Elysee Palace for talks on Europe’s security quandary. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was also attending’, says The Huff Post here. ‘Sánchez considers it premature to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine as proposed by France and the United Kingdom: "We are still at war", he says’, 20Minutos reporting here. Macron called a second conference with all European countries plus Canada to discuss the issue by video-link on Wednesday afternoon. Twitter shows here what cost share arrangements comes from each NATO country. The USA provides 15.88%.

Electricity and gas prices across Europe: How does your country compare? EuroNews puts Madrid (for some reason, it compares capital cities) about half-way down the list. Berlin tops the list, Budapest is the cheapest.

From Axios here: ‘Trump promises to treat VAT systems like Europe's like a tariff. President Trump said Saturday the U.S. will treat value added tax (VAT - IVA) systems the same as tariffs, for purposes of helping to calculate the reciprocal levies on other countries he ordered earlier this week. The impact could be most immediate in the European Union, which has standardized value added taxes with an average rate of almost 22%...’

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Health:

The three worst brands of milk in Spain, according to the OCU (consumers’ organisation). All three are semidesnatadas and are listed by El Economista here. 

Spanish scientists present the first paediatric exoskeleton for home use (with video).

Wouldn’t the doomed Hotel Algarrobico make a great residence for the elderly? An interesting question from Más Andalucía. (Thanks Antonio)

…...

Courts:

Even Manos Limpias, Hazte Oír and Vox are beginning to worry that the over-zealous Judge Peinado's actions in the case against Pedro Sánchez’s wife are becoming counterproductive says El Plural here. 

From The Olive Press here: ‘Judge investigating Valencia flood disaster says lives would have been saved if phone warnings had been sent earlier’. Will this be enough to finally tip the regional governor Carlos Mazón out of the nest?

From Rolling Stone here (the Spanish media are quiet on this subject): ‘Pablo Hasél’s arrest ignited free speech protests in Spain. Years later, the rapper is still in jail. Hasél became a lightning rod that rallied people across Spain to fight for artistic freedom. He continues to speak out’. We read ‘…The sentence — for a song, a music video, and 64 tweets — was partially for “injurias a la Corona,” or insulting and slandering the monarchy’.

…...

Media:

This one may have passed us by… ‘How to 'steal' a prestigious Spanish magazine for a few thousand euros: "They deceived us and have completely ruined it". The purchase of publications by unknown companies ruins the work of years of academics: the people in charge of 'Cuadernos de Economía' sold cheaply under the promise, unfulfilled, of maintaining editorial control; the change of hands over at 'Comunicar' left three editors stranded’ says elDiario.es here. What happens is that some companies buy out influential science magazines, promising to maintain their quality, and then fill them with questionable content, supplied by interested parties. Here is ‘a list of questionable, scholarly open-access publishers’ from Beall's List of Potential Predatory Journals and Publishers.

ctxt comments on the recent meeting of the far-right in Madrid: ‘Theatre and propaganda. To a large extent, that was the Patriots for Europe summit held on February 8 in Madrid. Amid shouts, applause and cheers from less than two thousand Vox fans gathered in a hotel on the outskirts of the capital, what Santiago Abascal, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán, Matteo Salvini, Geert Wilders, André Ventura and a few other far-right supporters repeated is nothing new. They may have said it in an even more unabashed and explicit way than other times, but, at the end of the day, it is the same as always: the progressive and woke dictatorship is destroying our nations, multiculturalism is a threat, uncontrolled immigration is financed by George Soros, the Christian values ​​of Europe must be protected, a new Reconquista is needed, “climate fanaticism” must be fought, the European Union is responsible for the evils that plague us…’

Pablo Iglesias eventually gave up his post as leader of Podemos (although his wife remains as an MEP in Brussels) and he now has a pub in Lavapies – a working-class district of Madrid. An amusing article called ‘The Hunt for Pablo Iglesias’ at Público begins: ‘This February, the hunting season for Pablo Iglesias (paolum podemitum) has been reopened, a rare specimen that we thought was practically extinct and whose hunting has once again delighted the enthusiasts of this elusive specimen. They have tried to kill Pablo Iglesias through headlines, newscasts, police sewers, paid journalists, hired judges, Indas, Marhuendas, Quintanas, Ferreras (some journalists known for their inventive prose), and they even organized a months-long hunt at his home, harassing his wife Irene Montero (monteris irenae), another disputed game piece, and his children, but there was no way. This is known to be a highly resistant animal, although perhaps not as much as those who continue to insist on finishing it off and hanging its skin from a stick at the entrance of a chalet in Galapagar (the couple’s home in Madrid)…’

The point being, they are still inventing bulos about the man and his past public life.

…...

Various:

‘Spain's population exceeds 49 million thanks to the increase in foreigners, while births plummet’ says El Economista here.

Xataca looks at the growing hostility between the Spanish Government and Ryanair. The issues are a large fine doled out to the budget airline and their charges for cabin luggage.

From El País (paywall) here: ‘The number of people sleeping at Barajas airport has multiplied by ten. According to a study by the ASAE union of Aena, the four terminals of the airport host an average of between 400 and 500 people every night, where the unemployed, workers and conflictive people mix’.

‘The village in Zamora where the first child has been born in eighteen years. It is no secret that Spain is suffering from a birth rate problem. For several years, births in the country have been declining, as in many other developed countries, which could lead to a crisis in the future. One example of this is the pension system, which is at risk of not being sustainable in the long term. A study by the World Bank placed Spain in 188th place in terms of the annual number of births. This is one of the lowest rates in Europe and in the world…’ The story comes from Infobae here. (See Editorial above for more on this.)

‘Spain to grant residency, work permits to potentially 25,000 immigrants affected by Valencia floods. The Spanish government will grant one-year residency and work permits to potentially 25,000 foreigners affected by the catastrophic flash floods that hit the eastern part of the country last October’. Item via the Associated Press here. 

‘Duende’ – what’s that? Brett Hetherington explains here.

…...

See Spain:

From Eye on Spain here: ‘A Head for Heights. Spain has some of the most spectacular trails in Europe and even some that were once considered amongst the most dangerous in the world. If you fancy a walk with a little more excitement you might just want to check out these breath-taking but vertiginous walks around Spain...here are the top ten…’

Mapping Spain with ‘What to Do in the City of Almeria’.

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Letters:

Following on from my editorial last week about the correos, I got two Christmas cards from abroad on Friday (14 Feb). One from the USA and the other from the UK.

The British one was posted on 11 November 2024.

Oddly, there was a twenty pound note in the one from England (although, no carbon paper) for me to send on to the Valencian flood-victims!

To Granddad (Colin Davies here): ‘My bilingual grandson – just 6 – is learning to read in school in Spanish but also gets a bit of home-teaching in English. Which presents a challenge or two. Hence his lovely Valentine’s message to me: HAPI BALAMS DEI’.

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Finally:

Ilegales – Es ansiedad – on YouTube here.