BoT 601

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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September 25 2025            Nº 601

Editorial:

I’ve always been a big fan of the United States of America. I’ve spent a total of at least three years there during my life so far and have been to most of the 50 states (the remaining ones are too cold, too small or too hard to reach).

I also passed three months in Washington DC, which for some reason is its own territory.

I was married to a wonderful woman from California whose parents, like mine, settled in Spain in the sixties, and we had thirty years together before she died. We have three children – two of whom are now living in the American mid-west (the third one stayed home here in España).

I was brought up (until I was thirteen) in Norfolk UK, near an American airbase. My parents were friendly with some of the officers, and I would be gifted (sic) lots of comic books (I was one of the earliest British fans of Batman, Superman and Casper the Friendly Ghost). Then came books (with writers like Jack Schaefer, Zane Grey and O. Henry), peanut butter and Hershey Bars.

From the age of nine onwards, I knew that I wanted to spend as much time as I could in America. Those cars!

Studying in Seville when I was seventeen, I took college entrance exams, and was all ready to go, when some friends of my parents warned them (erroneously, I’m sure) that I would end up in Vietnam being shot at by fellows wearing black pyjamas.

I finally crossed ‘el charco’ in 1974, arriving in Florida to stay with the Franzen boys in Pompano Beach – a place with no pavements, bad colour television, beautiful girls and amazing cocktails. Gayne and Ted’s parents were neighbours of my family in Spain. I remember to this day consuming my first Whopper.

I love the opportunity that the USA offers, plus the enormous and sparsely populated hinterland. My two kids live in a state that is 40% larger than the whole of Spain.

I’m a huge fan of American culture: its writers, musicians and artists who have brought so much pleasure to the world. 

Nowadays, I tend to go every November and visit the grandchildren, the local Wal-Mart and the breathtaking countryside (when I can afford to) and to eat the Thanksgiving turkey, but I shan’t be going this year.

 

Sadly, the USA that I know and love is undergoing a Once in a Hundred Year collapse (think the October Revolution or Brexit) thanks to the insidious MAGA philosophy. I can put up (more or less) with the guns and the iced tea, but Donald Trump’s second term, surrounded as he is this time with people who are evidently even thicker and nastier that him (mostly fished from the water treatment plant of Fox News) is for me a step too far.

There’s Pete Hegseth with his alarming Christian tattoos and his alleged love for a bottle of scotch who runs the reassuringly renamed ‘Department of War’. The worm-brained Robert Kennedy: the ludicrous secretary of health who doesn’t believe (‘believe’!) in vaccinations. Kristi Noem is the Secretary for Homeland Security – she’s the one who wants to deport all the Latin farmworkers with her reprehensible (and masked) ICE goons (she’s best known for shooting her puppy because it wouldn’t ‘heel’). Then there’s the top two officials at the FBI, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, who between them have no previous experience at the law enforcement agency (Bongino used to be a far-right radio host). The eccentric Christian extremist Mike Huckabee is Trump’s ambassador to Israel… and so on: a plethora of the inept and dangerously appointed. Then there’re the current purges against ‘the radical left’ Democrat party – a damp and strangely feeble group that could kindly be described in European terms as centre-right. The late Charlie Kirk said of them: ‘the Dems believe everything God hates’.

Such a young country run by such old-fashioned conservative values!

Of course, I can still visit the USA (after all, I’m tall and pink and have a nice anglo-sounding name, plus I’m too old to be much of a nuisance anyway). Just remember not to say anything silly and make a point of glaring sternly at anyone who looks even slightly Latin.  

Anyway, I’ve decided. I’ll be staying home this year. I wish to avoid the minor threat of ending up in Alligator Alley or Guantánamo.

I’m told that I’m not the only one who thinks like this.

On the bedside table I’ve got Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath ready to re-read.

All said, I’m pretty sure that I can manage just fine this year without a Hershey Bar. 

…...

Housing:

‘Madrid, the new epicentre of European wealth’. From El Confidencial here, we read of ‘…A transformation as profound as the one Madrid is undergoing. The 19th edition of Knight Frank's The Wealth Report, a comprehensive analysis of prime real estate and properties around the world, not only confirms what we've been observing from the ground up, but also paints an exciting future for the city.

The data is overwhelming: prime residential has established itself as the preferred investment for the world's high-net-worth individuals, who have become the largest player in this segment. This concentration of capital is no coincidence: they are seeking tangible, secure assets with long-term appreciation potential…’ 

Xataca here has: ‘As if Spain didn't have enough housing problems, it now has another one: almost 15% of home purchases registered last year were made by foreigners’. 

The Junta de Andalucía is hoping to encourage people to move to the hinterlands of the region, to those 480 towns and villages which are losing population, with a new website. ‘If you're looking for a place to live, work, or start a business in Andalucía, this is the place for you’. Details about each pueblo are at Vive Más Andalucía here. 

From Medium here ‘Why 73% of American Expats Leave Spain Within Two Years (Industry Data You Won’t Like)’. Fair enough – the Spanish bureaucracy is hateful, but insisting on ‘the authentic Spanish experience’ is not a good idea. Those who move to a Spanish expat-infested resort will do much better. 

From Landlord Today here: ‘Investing in Spanish property? How to protect yourself against rogues’. Turns out, there are plenty of them about. 

…...

Tourism: 

From The Olive Press here: ‘Spain to spend €13,000 million on mega airport upgrades – as Ryanair slams ‘rip-off’ fees. Despite the backlash from environmentalists, Pedro Sánchez insists the plan – dubbed “DORA III” – is vital to keep Spain’s airports from bursting at the seams. Barcelona alone handled more than 55 million passengers last year, close to its 60m limit. Construction on the biggest projects isn’t expected to kick off until 2030 – but by then, millions more tourists will already be flooding into Spanish skies…’ 

El Mundo says that Europe is vulnerable to cyberattacks: Russian participation is under investigation amid airport chaos. A hack at an aviation service provider was affecting major European airports last weekend. The Guardian reported later that a man has been arrested in the UK as ‘the investigation remains ongoing’. 

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Finance: 

From The Corner here: ‘Exports grew by 3.5% year-on-year in July, reaching €34,419 million, an all-time high for this month, according to customs trade data collected in the Monthly Foreign Trade Report of the Ministry of Economy, prepared by the Secretary of State for Trade. This is the third consecutive month of growth...’ 

From The Times here: ‘British warship to be built by Navantia in Spain. Difficulties at the Belfast yard of Harland & Wolff mean part of the £1,600 million contract will be fulfilled outside the UK’. (Thanks to Jake for this one) 

From Spanish Property Insight here, with the acquisition of Fotocasa and Habitaclia by the German Scout24, ‘The Spanish online property portal market is going through a wave of consolidation that looks set to leave just a handful of dominant players in what is essentially a winner-takes-all business’. 

…...

Politics: 

Opinion from El Plural here: ‘Feijóo sinks while Vox grows, the PP bleeds dry. The PP leader is on his way to becoming the worst leader in the history of the Popular Party. Not even Aznar has aroused such disapproval’. The article begins: ‘Being a ridiculous copy of the far right always takes its toll. And Alberto Núñez Feijóo is proving it. Three years after entering national politics, the PP leader is going through his worst period: his party is plummeting in the polls, Vox is capitalizing on his mistakes, and the right-wing electorate is beginning to openly abandon him…’ 

From El Mundo here: ‘The government informs the regions that it will only allow them a deficit of 0.1%, and Junts per Catalunya (a minor but key ally of the Government) postpones their support for the budget. Puigdemont's party sees it as "an insult" and will only vote in favour if it reaches 0.3%...’

Javier Ortega Smith (Vox) asked Admiral Antonio Piñeiro if he saw the need to increase the presence of Navy ships in the Strait of Gibraltar and in the waters of the Canary Islands, Ceuta, and Melilla to curb illegal immigration reaching Spanish shores by boat. The head of the Spanish Navy responded with "We are not here to fight the cayucos, but to help them". La Sexta has the story.

From El Huff Post here: ‘This week, Vox defends its proposal to limit home purchases by foreigners with a "deterrent tax regime". The group chaired by Santiago Abascal is presenting its housing proposals to Congress this week, which range from limiting purchases by foreigners to eliminating IVA and property transfer taxes on primary residence purchases’. 

…...

Europe: 

Chinese carmaker BYD is fed up: all off its electric cars will soon be manufactured in Europe to avoid EU tariffs. BYD will thus respond to the dreaded tariffs imposed by the European Union on imported Chinese electric cars. ‘This will lead to huge cost savings starting in 2028’ says Híbridos y Eléctricos here. 

Wednesday: ‘The Spanish defence ministry said one of its military planes carrying minister Margarita Robles to Lithuania was struck by an attempted attack on its GPS navigation as it flew near the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad’. A report from Newsweek here. 

…...

Courts: 

‘The judge accuses Ayuso's boyfriend of organized crime and opens a trial against him. Judge Carmen Rodríguez Medel orders the opening of a trial against Alberto González Amador for four crimes: two counts of tax fraud of more than €350,000, plus a continuing accounting offense, and adds a further charge of belonging to a criminal organization in her ruling, which could increase the sentence requested by approximately two additional years beyond the initial sentence’. The story is at Cadena Ser here.

To really get some attention, how about a trial by jury? Judge Peinado’s latest attempt to embarrass the Government, Sánchez and indeed Spain is to call for a public trial against Begoña Gómez (the President’s wife) over his latest inquiry – this time for embezzlement!

Government ministers describe this endless persecution from Peinado as ‘surrealist’. 

From El País here: David Sánchez, the brother of Pedro Sánchez, will finally be brought to trial. The Provincial Court of Badajoz on Tuesday rejected the appeals filed by David and a further ten defendants, including the leader of the PSOE of Extremadura, Miguel Ángel Gallardo, against the decision of Beatriz Biedma, presiding judge of Badajoz Court of Instruction No. 3, to send them to trial for the crimes of administrative prevarication and influence peddling for alleged irregularities in the 2017 hiring of David Sánchez by the Badajoz provincial council. The decision comes despite opposition from the Prosecutor's Office, which considered that the case should be closed because it was based solely on "conjecture"…’ (it’s another Manos Limpias case). 

‘…The party leadership notes that "in 48 hours, a trial has been opened against two people whose only crime is being related to the president of the government," referring to the president's brother and partner. "This step, though expected, is no less surprising. In time, this will be remembered as the Caso Peinado", they add…’ From elDiario.es here. 

In short, we have ‘Ayuso’s boyfriend’ on one side, plus the massive Cristóbal Montoro Case, while the other side has both the wife and the brother of Sánchez (in two very flimsy but highly political cases) plus the far heavier Caso Koldo, with two senior PSOE figures (or ex-PSOE to be accurate) both facing trial. 

From La Nueva España here: ‘The Prosecutor's Office accuses the leader of Desokupa of inciting hatred and inciting violations of moral integrity. The indictment against Daniel Esteve in the Valencia courts also includes a message from that year in which he blamed migrants for recent events and from having made various threats’. 

From El Distrito here. A fresh judicial error has struck the National Court. Judge Santiago Pedraz, presiding judge of Central Investigative Court No. 1, has mistakenly released the dangerous drug trafficker Firass Taghi, a prominent member of the Mocro Maffia, a criminal organization of Dutch origin that controls part of the cocaine trade in Europe… 

…...

Media: 

‘Alberto Núñez Feijóo and the Partido Popular remain steadfast in their denunciation of RTVE and Pedro Sánchez, accusing the public broadcaster of being a "propaganda apparatus" in their latest statements’. This, despite repeated invitations to Feijóo to be interviewed says the plain-speaking TV journalist Silvia Intxaurrondo.

‘Following the logic of the Partido Popular (‘Sánchez's isolation is not the brilliant idea the PP had in mind’), Pedro Sánchez is less isolated today than he was on Friday. The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and Portugal, the latter governed by a party allied with the PP, recognized the Palestinian state this weekend. France did so on Monday night with Macron's speech at the UN General Assembly…’ Opinion from elDiario.es here. 

During the Franco years, when one went to the cinema, one had to put up with a news-reel known as the No-Do (the full name was Noticiarios y Documentales). Infobae says that the secret archives of those unreleased pieces of, well, propaganda, are now being revised. ‘The National Film Library preserves 6,000 tapes that were never broadcast. RTVE and the production company Minoría Absoluta have recovered 400 of these’. The national TV is now beginning to show them in all their tattered glory. 

elDiario.es opinion: how does he do it? ‘…The systematic rejection of Sánchez's policies cannot be understood without considering the emotional component that drives it. The Spanish right has constructed a narrative in which Sánchez is presented as an illegitimate, ambitious leader, willing to make any pact—with separatists, nationalists, or the radical left—to remain in power. This image, fuelled by years of media campaigns and inflammatory speeches, rife with insults, has resonated deeply with conservative voters. On social media, hashtags like #SánchezDimisión and #SánchezTraidor are common, and criticism often focuses more on him than on his policies.

This visceral hatred has complex roots. On the one hand, Sánchez has demonstrated a political resilience that baffles his adversaries. His ability to assert himself boldly, as in the primaries that returned him to the position of general secretary of the PSOE, or the 2018 vote of no confidence, his performance in the 2023 elections when everything seemed to be against him, or his undeniable skill in reaching out to disparate political forces, has frustrated a right that had expected to see him fall quickly…’ 

On Monday, ‘Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez received the Gates Foundation's Global Goalkeeper Award for 2025 for Spain's increased support for global health and expanded development aid’ (Reuters here).

Now look – there’s even talk of him being given the Nobel Peace Prize!

…...

Ecology: 

From El Español here: ‘The biologist Miguel Delibes de Castro: "The climate battle is lost; all we have left is to learn to adapt"’. 

…...

Various: 

From LaSexta here: ‘A pensioner, to the young people who say "life was better under Franco" answers: "I wouldn't want them to go through what I went through; in those times, we didn't even have enough to eat. We didn't have water, we lived in shacks, and we didn't have a toilet. To eat chicken, we had to wait until Christmas Eve," recalled Maribel, who emphasized that during the dictatorship, women had no rights, but rather "everything depended on their husbands"…’ 

An uninteresting article about protocol has this piece of illumination regarding Felipe VI. ‘…as Rubio explains, this green tie the King is wearing is striking because for defenders of the crown, V.E.R.D.E stands for Viva El Rey De España. "Have you ever wondered why the carpet in the assembly hall is green? Why do you think that is?" Diana Rubio asked…’ 

The world's first VLEO (Very Low Earth Orbit) satellite will be Spanish: Kreios Space has successfully powered satellites with the ambient air. Thus, a new satellite internet network will be a reality thanks to the creation of a Galician research unit. The story here.

Sur in English says ‘Almost 40% of motorbikes on the roads in Spain don't have valid ITV and nearly 30% are being ridden without insurance. Shocking figures have also revealed that 207 motorcyclists and 14 moped riders have been killed in accidents so far this year (as of last Friday). 

The electricity system in Andalucía is nearing its limit: Málaga and Almería can no longer handle new demand. 93% of the access nodes in the region have already reached their limit, and only 1,051 megawatts of the nearly 12,000 currently permitted by the system are available for new uses says El Conciso here. 

‘Accept or Reject Cookies’, every time we open a webpage is, as we all know, a pain in the rear. ‘It was (apparently) supposed to make our lives easier. In fact, it’s wasting 575 million hours a year’ says Xataca here (I use an app on Firefox which nukes them). The European Commission is now looking for an easier way for users to open a page (so they say)… 

Science Alert has more on the background and possible origin of Christopher Columbus. 

…...

See Spain: 

From Andalucía Informa here: ‘Renfe relaunches Al-Andalus: the "slow luxury" train reminiscent of the Orient Express expands its route through Andalucía. The tourist train celebrates 40 years with a major renovation and extends its route through Andalucía, Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha, and Madrid, with onboard life inspired by the 1920s’. 

…...

Letters:

Last week’s property editorial. On point Mr Napier and as I'm sure you are well aware this problem extends far beyond Spain's borders, but cheers for an early morning interesting and thought provoking read.

Freddie

 

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Finally:

Residente ft. Ibeyi - This is Not America (Official Video) on YouTube here.