BoT 593

 

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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July 31 2025            Nº 593

 

Editorial: 

Do you remember ‘the Twinkie Defence’? This was the story of some lunatic who ran into the mayor of San Francisco’s office many years ago and shot several people to death, including Hizzonor. The Californian police, failing for once to shoot the ‘alleged perpetrator of this heinous and unprovoked attack', carted him off to clink instead.
Well, the pesky defence lawyers got hold of him and discovered that he had munched on a couple of cup-cakes before bursting through the doors of City Hall. Their defence was based on this simple meal – the sugar in the cup cakes (or ‘Twinkies’ as the Americans call them) had gone to his head.
Imagine what he might have done if he had eaten an entire box of them.
Here in Spain, traditional cakes – found above all either at the village fiesta or behind glass at the back of a roadside restaurant – are to be seen and admired, but, at least until recently, never eaten. They would vary from the ones created from sugar, flour, lard and some confectioner’s kreme, drizzled with cheap honey, while the better ones might have had a glass of sticky rum splashed over them to make them even more scrumptious…

No, I’m kidding. They were (and are) horrible.
We had to buy one in the pueblo the other day for a child’s birthday. ‘Hapy Birhtday to Jhonahton’ was lovingly picked out in vermillion paste across the top of this monster. Luckily Jonathan isn’t much of a reader and failed to notice the errata. He nevertheless picked up a valuable lesson after finishing his second piece of the confection:
Always sit near the door.
At home, we disagree about cakes. I like a fruit cake prepared several months before, stuffed with cherries and whatever else it is they put in those things and covered with marzipan and icing, while my wife prefers something chocolaty with nuts.
But the Andalusians veer from this, preferring to use oils and lard (that’s to say, rendered animal fat) to butter. The best place to start with genuine local cakes is at the village fiesta where you can admire a range of er, sweet things usually covered in enthusiastic if incautious wasps. Ask for a media-luna – a marvel of the cakemakers' art which is usually designed more for show than for tell.

Other varieties might be tooth-breakingly hard and maybe stuffed with ‘angel hair’, also known as sugared pumpkin mush. The icing will be generous, but free from milk or butter. I think it’s fair to say that the entire cake, built to both look good and to last during the several days of the fiesta, should never be eaten on an empty stomach.
There’s a notorious cake made in the south called Torta de Chicharrones. it’s made with pork-fat, flour, yeast, an egg and small chewy bits which turn out to be chicharrón – pig’s crackling.

The best time for cakes (apart from during the village fiesta), is the Christmas Season which

brings polverones, which are cookies made of crushed almond-dust. The also popular roscones are round cakes made with cream, milk, sponge, with bits of angelica root and other dried fruit and they will follow the erstwhile British custom of the sixpence in the mix by putting a small metal virgin or the representation of one of the three kings, a collectable, somewhere in the confection.

A fashion no doubt introduced by dentists.
In all, Andalucía, under the control of the Moors for many centuries, enjoys something a bit heavier than a sponge cake covered with icing. The usual fillings (which in Morocco or the Middle East can be quite delicious) include dates, nuts, dried fruit and lashings of honey.

But the most likely place to find a cake is with one’s breakfast. We have ‘Napolitanas’ which are buns filled with cream or chocolate. They vary from warm and good to dry and old. You can dip them in your coffee – sometimes, indeed, you are obliged to.

The most popular bun is the ‘Madalena’ which is a simple and rather tasteless sponge scone. Well, spongy anyway. It comes wrapped in plastic. The ‘Cruasán’ is the Spanish croissant, made with pork fat rather than butter. Not very good as a rule, especially when it’s been on the cake-shelf for a couple of days. There are a few brand-name cakes in their eye-catching packets, chocolate Swiss-roll types of things, including a frightening looking pink one called ‘Pantera Rosa’ which I both imagine and hope is banned in the Greater San Francisco area. Lastly, the ever popular and industrial doughnut, the ‘Donut’, which comes in assorted flavours and a truly alarming collection of chemicals, food additives, colourings, flavourings, preservatives and conservatives. Personally, I love ’em.

It's hard to escape the fact that the best places where lumps of sugared sponge-drops are served with your coffee are usually heavily patrolled by diabetic sparrows, destined to die at an early age in a blissful sugar-rush.
As our area has enthusiastically grasped the nettle of the Twenty-first Century, where you can no longer find a simple salad on the menu, or pig n’ chips without an endless complication of sauce and adornment (I had slices of strawberry surrounding my lamb chops the other evening in a Mojácar hostelry), so, too, our coffee shops have improved in the cake department. We have Italian, French and British cakes, scones, pies and bonbons which are a far cry from an earlier age when the aerodynamic ones were prized by discerning customers above all others.

I think that the new trend started with the introduction to Spain of the Italian tiramisu (a soft and chocolaty little number).

The other day, I rounded off my dinner with a delicious ‘Grannie’s Cake’ (‘pastel de la abuela’) – very good it was, although packed with around 1,000 calories.
Cakes, ice cream (delicious in Spain), chocolates and sticky things in plastic cups. I wonder if they have an effect. Perhaps they’re just there to make us fat.

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Housing: 

National World has a puff-piece here for buying a home on the Costa del Sol with ‘Long-term lifestyle considerations draw property buyers to Spain’. 

The government recently offered funds to all the Regions to build public housing. The autonomías run by the PP said they weren’t interested (for political reasons). Thus, we read at El Plural here: ‘Housing has become the main concern for young people, who are finding it increasingly difficult to become independent. However, the current heightened political confrontation in our country is leading several autonomous communities to forgo significant funding to address this problem. Although the Spanish government has approved a State Housing Plan that includes €4,000 million, Extremadura is going to forgo the (200 million euros) state funds it is entitled to due to its refusal to accept "political tactics"’. Another Region, Aragón, has also refused, in their case, 250 million euros in housing aid. From the same site, ‘The Aragon government's solution to tackle the housing problem: build 22-square-metre micro-apartments’.

‘Afra Blanco, union member and TV personality: "We must remember that six out of every ten homes being purchased are for investment". Ms Blanco points out that the essential function of housing as a basic right has been displaced by the logic of economic profit’. The story at El Confidencial here. 

Madrid: ‘Ayuso and Almeida launch a plan that will transform 73% of central Madrid homes into tourist accommodation. The Madrid Regional Government and City Hall join forces to launch the Plan Reside, despite the angry protests from the opposition. 

From Spanish Property Insight here: ‘Outsiders snap up abandoned Galician villages at bargain prices. Abandoned villages in rural Galicia, once the domain of foreign investors and nostalgic descendants of emigrants, have taken on a new life—this time in the hands of outsiders from other parts of Spain looking for a radically different (and much cheaper) way to live.’ The article adds: ‘With prices starting as low as €39,000—less than a quarter of the cost of a modest flat in most urban areas—these once-forgotten hamlets are drawing increasing numbers of young and not-so-young buyers who have had enough of cramped cities, spiralling prices, and a lifetime chained to a mortgage’. 

From Majorca Daily Bulletin here: ‘Mallorca paradise no more? Residents ready to leave the Balearic Islands. Among those considering relocation, Andalucía was the top choice’. 

An alarming headline from Cadena Ser reads: ‘Spaniards need 52 years of salary to buy a house (dedicating 40% of your payroll, the recommended amount) and 100% of their monthly salary to rent’. The UGT union is the source for these figures. ‘According to the union data, in sectors such as hospitality and retail, workers are sometimes forced to spend 100% of their net salary on rent in cities like Madrid and Barcelona’. 

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Tourism: 

From The Corner here, ‘Spain welcomes over 52 million international air passengers in the first six months of 2025, up 6.4% year-on-year’.

‘It's becoming evident on the beaches, pools, restaurants, and at the hotels: there aren't as many (national) tourists as in other years. The Costa del Sol is experiencing a summer that breaks the statistics, and for the first time since the pandemic, both the number of visitors and the number of overnight stays has fallen. Neither the surge in foreign tourists nor the variety of offerings can fill the gap left by domestic tourism, which has already accumulated a drop of up to 8% since 2023 and continues to lose strength this year…’ 101 titles it as ‘Fewer tourists and shorter stays: the weakest summer in years on the Costa del Sol’. Similarly, from La Gaceta de Salamanca here: ‘The terraces are emptier than ever: "Now the bocadillo tourists are coming". The sector attributes this crisis to the economic difficulties of many (Spanish) families’. elDiario.es has: ‘Mallorca's bar prices are scaring away tourists: "Now they order a juice and drink it between five people." Visitors continue to flock to Sóller, the tourist epicentre of the Serra de Tramuntana mountains, but are hesitant to pay for menus that cost more than 25 euros per person’. 

Colin Davies writes a daily blog from his home in Pontevedra. On Sunday, he noted that ‘This would have been unimaginable a few years ago . . . The number of Caminers (i.e., those on the Camino de Santiago) passing through Pv City has increased this year by 11% and this weekend has seen 150,000 of them, walking in more than 30 degrees of heat. On a human conveyor belt. With greater numbers – and increased profits – has come greater professionalism. And more comfortable lodgings for the richer ‘pilgrims’. Until quite recently, there were only public pilgrim hostels where you couldn’t book ahead, so you had to race to be there when they opened early afternoon. But, now, there are numerous private albergues and reserving a bed is possible. Indeed, there’s even a web page you can do this Here: https://bookalbergue.com/en/ – which certainly looks impressive. 

Frontex (ETIAS/EES information) has its own page here.

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Finance: 

Unemployment in Spain with Wiki here: ‘Spain suffers a high level of structural unemployment. Unemployment began rising in Francoist Spain during the 1970s. During the Francoist Spain, trade union activism was prohibited and social security benefits of the modern welfare state were lacking. Since the economic and financial crisis of the 1980s, unemployment has never dipped below 8%. One leading cause is an economy based mostly on tourism and building sectors, as well as a lack of industry…’ That said, El HuffPost brings us some good news: ‘Spain surpasses 22 million workers for the first time (22,270,000) and reduces the unemployment rate to 10.29%. This is the lowest level reached since 2007, according to the Labour Force Survey (EPA)’. More on this here.

From elDiario.es here: ‘The Spanish economy consolidates its strong performance with 0.7% growth in the second quarter. The strong labour market has made domestic demand the driving force behind GDP, which grew by 2.8% year-on-year’. 

El Economista is unconvinced: ‘Spain's economy is riding a kind of treadmill that needs to keep moving nonstop to maintain the expansion of activity. Extensive GDP growth (growth through a constant increase in production factors, rather than through productivity increases) requires the constant influx of workers into the system to continue producing increases in production. Within this model, tourism has become the fundamental pillar that sustains the system. It’s a sector that is highly labour-intensive (it generates a lot of employment) and that seems to have endless growth prospects (maybe…). Its contribution to GDP and growth is undeniable, but at the same time, it's worth asking whether this model is both healthy and sustainable. Tourism has been a patch that has worked in the short term, but in the long term, some are even beginning to talk about ‘the tourism trap’…

El Blog Salmón has ‘The data speaks for itself. In recent decades, the composition of public spending in Spain has changed significantly. The proportion allocated to pensions and old-age and survivors' benefits has steadily increased, while other key areas for economic and social development have been losing relative weight in the budget … Instead of promoting new investments to improve productivity and equal opportunities, public spending has been focused on maintaining current benefits…’ 

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Politics: 

The Parliamentary holidays are on (until late August), but the news continues. 

A video here has Jesús Cintora (RTVE journalist) ‘Updates on the Montoro case: increased involvement of the Partido Popular with Cristóbal Montoro's office. Did they steer the operation of the Treasury to the service of the PP while Montoro was minister?’ 

Over at the Madrid City Hall, the final plenary session before the hols had ‘Vox sharpening its rhetoric against both migrants and homosexuals’. 

La Razón thinks that Pedro Sánchez will be unlikely to last two more years of the current legislature down to the PSOE corruption. They tell us why, chapter and verse. 

From Éamann Mac Donnchada on Substack here: ‘Sánchez Still Standing. To the irritation of many, especially at The Economist’.

El Mundo says: ‘Noelia Núñez, from a PP promise promoted by Isabel Díaz Ayuso and hardened in the Socialist stronghold of Fuenlabrada to a victim of her own resumé. Her tough and combative tone had led her to rise in Génova (the PP headquarters), where she was ratified as deputy secretary by Feijóo just a few days ago’. El HuffPost says, rather more blandly, ‘Noelia Núñez resigns from her PP positions and resigns as a member of parliament following the scandal over her fake education. The former member of parliament and deputy secretary for Mobilization and the Digital Challenge of the PP, one of Feijóo's biggest candidates, had falsified her academic qualifications. "Asking for forgiveness is not enough," she asserted in a statement’. A few other politicians have quietly changed their curriculum vitae following the Noelia debacle. 

Infobae has ‘Memory, housing, transgender issues, and amnesty: the laws Feijóo plans to overturn together with Vox if he wins the Moncloa presidency’ (the photo makes him look taller). 

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Gibraltar: 

The Independent brings us: ‘Taking back control: Spain will decide which British travellers to admit to Gibraltar. UK visitors face extra Brexit red tape, including fingerprinting, as Rock aligns with Schengen area formalities’. We read: ‘…The deal has been constructed to allow a free flow of passengers, vehicles and goods across the land frontier between Gibraltar and Spain. In order to achieve this, Gibraltar must be treated the same as the Schengen area – the passport-free zone that includes almost all the European Union, plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. Consequently, the “third country” rules that the Boris Johnson government negotiated for UK citizens will apply to the territory’. 

…...

Europe: 

The Guardian says: ‘Trump and von der Leyen announce US-EU trade deal. Agreement includes 15% baseline tariff for most EU exports to US after deal reached at Scotland crunch talks’. From Reuters here: ‘EU's pledge for $250 billion of US energy imports is delusional’. ctxt brings us ‘The shame of being European’. It says: ‘Just when the self-abasement over Gaza seemed to be going nowhere, a photo of President von der Leyen capitulating to the biggest political monstrosity of the century, Donald Trump, appeared’. The Western Journal (a Christian conservative site from the USA) has: ‘European Leaders Furious After Trump Gets the Best of Them in Monumental Trade Deal’. RTÉ (Ireland) says: ‘In Quotes: Europe reacts to new trade deal with US’. Here’s Pedro Sánchez: "I value the constructive and negotiating attitude of the president of the European Commission. In any case, I support this trade agreement, but I do so without any enthusiasm".

The Spanish only send around 5% of their world exports to the USA (mainly wine and olive oil).

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Health: 

‘A landmark ruling confirms that ayahuasca is not prohibited in Spain’. Apparently. 

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Corruption: 

The Montoro Case is massive. From El Economista here. ‘More than a third of the Ibex-35 (Wiki) paid 13.8 million to Montoro's firm between the years 2008 and 2019’. The news-site throws in another title: ‘Montoro changed the tobacco tax regulations two months after meeting with Philip Morris’. From Infobae here: ‘The State paid Montoro €954,000 in public salaries while "his company" earned millions in bribes thanks to the Treasury obtaining legal changes. Montoro earned this income during eleven years as a member of parliament and minister. The Partido Popular paid him another €234,323 between 2008 and 2011. Meanwhile, the company he created, which is being investigated by a court, had a net profit of €47.9 million’. We read: ‘Cristóbal Montoro designed the perfect squaring of the circle. He spent eleven years collecting public salaries as a civil servant, while the company he created billed millions of euros to the private sector by influencing the Ministry of Finance, which he headed...’ 

elDiario.es here: ‘The Supreme Court – by a ruling of two to one – confirms that the Attorney General will be tried for the leak of Ayuso's partner's email’. A second report says The dissenting judge Andrés Palomo advocates dismissing the case against Álvaro García Ortiz and criticizes the investigating judge for not believing both the journalists who exonerated the Attorney General and also the UCO for failing to check exculpatory evidence that pointed to a dismissal from the outset’. There’s certainly been much more interest in this case – of the Attorney General allegedly participating in any plan to leak to the press the email in which Alberto González Amador confessed his tax fraud. We return to the question of whether Lawfare – the meddling of the judiciary in political questions – exists? Here’s the Cadena Ser: ‘The spokesperson for the Progressive Union of Prosecutors on the prosecution of García Ortiz: "He is the subject of an unprecedented attack in democracy"’. 

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Courts: 

A judge is prosecuting former regional minister Pilar Bonet (PP Palma) for forgery and defrauding Globalia of 2,177 million euros. Diario de Mallorca says that the ex-politician has already confessed to the bulk of the accusations. ‘The Globalia lawsuit led to the dismissal of Pilar Bonet as Minister of Finance and Public Administration on the Consell de Mallorca on February 8, 2024. When the president of the island's institution, Llorenç Galmés, was informed of the alleged embezzlement at Globalia, he forced her resignation. Bonet's dismissal was disguised as a resignation for personal reasons in a press release issued at the time by the Consell de Mallorca’. 

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Media:

‘The PP and the metamorphosis of their new PP star’, says El Nacional here. ‘The PP tries to divert attention away from the Montoro case with Noelia Núñez, a model of exemplary conduct who courageously resigned her post as party spokesperson after lying about her resumé’. Well, apart from the comedy, know that Noelia got a job the same day (at the same pay), working as a talking head on a right-wing TV show. The article features the front-page spin from both the ABC and La Razón.    

‘Life is full of surprises, Alberto. The Montoro case and the Caso Kitchen trial are going to give more than just a hot autumn for the People's Party’ says ctxt here. 

TeleMadrid put out a video of Pedro Sánchez speaking during his recent visit to Santiago de Chile, with the voice oddly sounding as if Sánchez was, um, drunk. This understandably caused a fuss. ‘"This daily ill-will towards the Government on what is a public television, paid for by everyone, is intolerable. We demand an apology, a rectification, and accountability. Not everything goes", said Óscar López, General Secretary of the PSOE in Madrid and Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Service, after checking the altered piece that the network had broadcast on its news programs…’ the TV channel replies to say that it was merely a ‘technical error’.  

‘Social media explodes against the UCO (judicial police) for hiding an audio recording of the whistleblower Aldama that disassociates Begoña Gómez from the Air Europa bailout: "They’ve been leaking everything from their enquiries, down to her preferred brand of underwear, but not this"’. The story is at Público. 

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Ecology: 

The Guardian says: ‘Thousands of tons of invasive seaweed ‘overwhelming’ Spanish beaches. Alga from south-east Asia is major threat to biodiversity, say experts as they warn of environmental catastrophe’. 

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Various: 

The Telegraph brings us: ‘What the Spanish really think of the English, according to locals. The Spanish are often bemused by their British visitors, as these dispatches attest’.

The Olive Press says that ‘Spain is to send 12 tonnes of food into war-torn Gaza as PM Pedro Sanchez slams ‘shameful famine’’. 

Teresa of Ávila (1515 – 1582) was a Carmelite nun and a prominent Spanish mystic and religious reformer (Wiki). She was declared a saint in 1622 and is the patron Saint of Málaga, the Sick and the game of chess. From La Opinión de Málaga here, we read of efforts to name the train station in Ávila after her. ‘…These days, the saint is back in the news thanks to José Antonio Sierra, a native of Ávila who has lived in Málaga since 2002. He is the founder of the Instituto Cervantes in Dublin. He has spearheaded cultural initiatives in Málaga such as the Casa de América, the Círculo de Amigos del Parque del Oeste, and the Círculo Malagueño de la Guitarra. He also spearheads the effort to ensure that all Spanish languages can be studied in language schools in Andalucía, provided there is a sufficient demand’. José Antonio is also consultant to the Business over Tapas. 

From El Confidencial here: ‘No one splashes in them anymore: the more than 40 abandoned water parks in Spain. Of the 230 such leisure centres on the Iberian Peninsula, one in five has closed. Architects Leonor Martín and Aida Navarro have been studying these ruins and inventorying them since 2019’. With photos. 

The jazz-scene in Madrid revolved around a particular club, the Café Central. Now word comes that it is to close down come October after 43 years of good music. 

El Mundo has ‘The hidden face of the sea of plastic: an average of 1,400 migrants live precariously in isolated rural buildings in the municipality of Níjar (Almería). There are around 470 substandard homes scattered throughout the region's economic centre’ (Note: when they talk about the huge sea of plastic around El Ejido – the one you can see from space – this is another large area of invernaderos (plastic farms) better known as Campo Hermoso). El País also features the story: ‘Life in the greenhouses: a room in the middle of nowhere, without running water and electricity only two days a week’. 

From 20Minutos here: ‘Racist hate messages are losing their "verguenza (shame)" on social media: "There are more and more people without filters and making a lot of noise." From July 6 to 22, 138,000 hate messages were detected on social media, the majority targeting people from North Africa. "We must prevent it from becoming a mantra that leads to manhunts," says the Secretary of State Pilar Cancela’. 

That gigantic 300m-tall bull may have found a home. Vox Burgos is asking its partner the PP to join them in finding some public land in Burgos for the toro. La Cadena Ser is here. 

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See Spain: 

Viajar recommends Valderrobles and its surrounds. ‘’An historic medieval centre, the best hiking trails, and natural pools. This Spanish destination is as good as a visit to Tuscany; it boasts medieval villages with a unique charm, enchanting nature, and the opportunity to enjoy soaking summer afternoons without struggling to find a place to put your towel. Welcome to La Comarca del Matarraña (Teruel). The administrative capital of the region is Valderrobres, a stately village with a castle, stone bridge, and walls. Recognized as a Site of Cultural Interest since 1983, it offers an architectural ensemble that seems straight out of a historical film—one of those so popular on Netflix. Crossing the medieval bridge over the Matarraña River, you're greeted by houses with wooden balconies and an imposing Gothic church crowning the landscape; a dream for rural tourism lovers…’ 

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Letters: 

Montoro Editorial. Fabulous article. Nothing new in any country, power corrupts and none more so than absolute power i.e. dictatorships.

But the sun shines and watching the burgeoning rise in the economy, Spain is becoming a beacon for growth.

Viva España,

Carol

 

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Finally: 

I first heard Malicorne on a record in a bar in Andorra la Vella (Wiki) in around 1975. They were a French classic-folk group. I found them to be magnifique. Here they are on YouTube with Le Mariage Anglais.