BoT 619

 

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 12 2026            Nº 619          

 

Editorial: 

Spain has had some good media reports recently – if only from abroad. It started in December with Italy’s L’Espresso naming Sánchez the person of the year. The New Statesman followed with an enthusiastic write-up, and an article late last month at the FT said that ‘Spain leads the formerly weak southern EU economies that are now outpacing France and Germany’.  The Spanish economy is doing well, there are plenty of tourists and the appreciation of Spain’s culture domestically, says the Government, is on the increase.

But let’s jump to where Spain’s brand of socialism is taking the country today. 

The New York Times just last week ran an article written by Sánchez himself: ‘I’m the Prime Minister of Spain. This is why the West needs migrants…’ Yes, one-sided you might say, after all, he wrote it to justify his policies; but look where it shows up!

His ‘guest essay’ appeared to diss President Trump: ‘…What should we do with these people? Some leaders have chosen to hunt them down and deport them through operations that are both unlawful and cruel. My government has chosen a different way: a fast and simple path to regularize their immigration status…’. Furthermore, he writes, the plan ‘…is endorsed by more than 900 nongovernmental organizations, including the Catholic Church, and it has the support of business associations and trade unions alike. More important, it is backed by the people’. The Guardian picks up on this with: ‘Yes, migrants are key to Spain’s economic boom. But Pedro Sánchez’s decision to regularise 500,000 people should rather be applauded for its humanity’.

Spain is getting used to bucking Western political trends. ‘Last year they recognized Palestine as a state, resisted President Trump’s demand that NATO members increase their defence spending to 5% of GDP and doubled down on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. But there can be no better example of Spain going its own way than with immigration’.

Or perhaps we could argue the merits of the new proposal to ban the use of social media for the under-sixteens. ‘First’, said Sánchez at the World Governments Summit in Dubai last week, ‘We will change the law in Spain to hold platform executives legally accountable for the many infringements taking place on their sites’.

Do Spaniards support restricting social media for children?

A Spanish poll a year ago asked whether children under 14 should be banned from using social media: a convincing 82% agreed. The current plan of course is for the under-16s.

The Spectator (that bastion of British Conservative thought) says ‘Spain’s PM is on the right side of this battle’.

The X and Telegram owners don’t like the idea – with Elon Musk calling Sánchez ‘a dirty tyrant and traitor to the people of Spain’ and Pavel Durov writing in a long screed on Telegram directly to his Spanish subscribers (including the under-sixteens), that ‘the measures announced by Sánchez are not safeguards, but rather steps toward total control to censor his critics, and that they must fight for their rights’.

On the strength of this, could other apps – maybe purely commercial ones – feel encouraged to send out to subscribers their political opinions?

Sánchez answered this on X with an apparent allusion to Don Quixote: "Let the techno-oligarchs bark, Sancho, it's a sign that we're riding forwards."

It’s certainly a special moment: where a foreign businessman can circumnavigate The State and appeal with propaganda aimed directly at his Spanish followers.

Internet access is starting at increasingly younger ages, and it's not just teenagers who are hyperconnected. 42% of children admit to having browsed the internet before the age of eight, and half of 15-year-olds spend at least thirty hours a week in front of a screen, according to an OECD report.

There will be problems: What age verification systems will be used? How will concerns about the privacy risks of providing proof of age be addressed? To what extent will adult access to social media be restricted to protect minors?

Beyond showing fluffy kittens and creating social bonding, we read that the threats from social media are many, and over half of all teens have experienced some form of cyberbullying, damage in self-esteem, sexual threats, misleading content, scams, risk-taking, challenges, hate-speech and dodgy advertising and claims.

And, for that matter, with less sleep and time left for other activities.

In all, Pedro Sánchez demonstrates that the obligation of a good government is to look out for and protect its people, not someone else’s billionaires. 

…...

Housing: 

From Idealista here: ‘Housing prices in Spanish cities are double those in rural areas. Demand is focused on cities, but there are nine provinces where interest in buying a house leans towards rural areas’. Elsewhere, an analysis on foreign buyers and popular choices. 

The housing crisis is forcing more people over 45 to rent, a situation that makes them feel insecure. From El País here. ‘Growing old in a rented apartment: “I’ll extend my working life to collect a higher pension, but I’ll have to move to a small town. This is going to explode”’. 

A vulture fund is trying to evict 62 vulnerable families in Manilva (Málaga) after buying their homes for 14,000 euros each. 

The Majorca Daily Bulletin has: ‘Palma is the most expensive city in Spain to buy a property, Mallorca prices continue to rise’. 

Sometimes, a property has several owners or rights of use (usually down to inheritance rules). A story circulates about a Brit who bought a palacio in Arcos de la Frontera only to find that the kitchen was legally shared by two nearby households. 20Minutos has the story (with a link to The Daily Mail).     

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Tourism: 

From a YMT travel-blog here: ‘How Spain’s Rich Culture Influences Your Vacation’. 

‘Spain registers the biggest drop in tourist accommodation to date amid government crackdown on illegal listings’, says El Economista here. ‘The number of tourist accommodations advertised on digital platforms in Spain fell in November 2025 to a total of 329,764, which is 46,699 less than a year earlier after a decline of 12.4%: the largest year-on-year drop in the historical series, which is part of the Government's offensive against illegal rentals in the short-stay rental category’. 

elDiario.es reports that ‘The Government rejects paying €44.5 million in compensation to the owners of the illegal Algarrobico hotel (Carboneras) for the expropriation of their land and instead suggests the somewhat miserly sum of €16,497. The Ministry for Ecological Transition and Azata del Sol, owner of the illegal mega-hotel on the Almería coast, have exhausted all administrative avenues without reaching an agreement on the land price. The Government has given the developer ten days to accept or reject its offer, and the final decision rests with a provincial expropriation board’. The outcome appears to be that Azata del Sol will be claiming their losses sooner or later from the Carboneras town hall. 

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Finance: 

From The Corner here: ‘Vehicle sales in Spain (new) reach 1,148,650 units in 2025 (up 12.9% on 2024), exceeding one-million mark for second consecutive year’. 

El País in English has: ‘How wealth is becoming concentrated in Spain. Recent economic growth has come with a widening wealth gap. The rich have greater clout than ever before’. 

From the Financial Times here: ‘The secretive powerbroker with a tight grip on corporate Spain. Isidro Fainé runs the Caixa Foundation, but the 83-year-old’s age and dominance are causing disquiet’. 

Reuters says that ‘Saudi Arabia has ordered 20 new high-speed trains from Spain's Talgo SA, the company and Spain's transport minister said on Sunday. In a statement, Talgo said the deal adds 1,330 million euros ($1.57 billion) to its order backlog, bringing it to a total of nearly 6,000 million euros, a record. The contract also covers maintenance for the trains’. 

From elDiario.es here: ‘US eases pressure on Spain over military spending: “It’s doing very well” says the American ambassador to Nato, Matthew Whitaker. Following the controversy surrounding Pedro Sánchez’s refusal to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP, the US diplomat considers “Spain a committed ally,” although he raises doubts about whether it will achieve the promised military capabilities’. 

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Politics: 

The Aragón results are in, with the PP dropping two seats to 26 and the PSOE losing five to 18. The biggest winner was Vox who doubled their presence from 7 to 14. In all, the current PP president Jorge Azcón will have to negotiate with Vox from a weaker position than before. And the primary culprit of this situation is the PP, which forced early elections in both Extremadura and Aragón, thinking they would wipe out Vox. Both times, the opposite has happened. El País says: ‘A Vox party euphoric over its rise is preparing to toughen its demands on the PP. Says Abascal: “If the Partido Popular wants to change its policies, they can count on us. If not, they have the PSOE”. As the defeated socialist candidate Pilar Alegría says, the PP is now even more of a hostage to Vox. Público scorns the results with ‘The PP may be the arithmetic winner but it’s the political loser’. 

The PP is now saying that they are open to a national alliance with Vox if the voters demand it, or, as El Confidencial reports: ‘Genova (the PP headquarters in Madrid) is now open to Feijóo governing with Vox if "the citizens ask for it"’. 

El Mundo says ‘Youth, bullfighting, and hunting: Vox's magic trifecta to dominate the forgotten Spain. In Teruel, Abascal nearly doubles his support and completely wrests towns from the PP, the PAR, the PSOE and Teruel Existe. Rebellion and weariness are the keys’. Well, that, and nincompoopery. 

I ask IA (Google) for Vox’s leading policies:

-National Unity and State Reform: Advocacy for a strong, centralized state, which includes eliminating regional autonomous governments to increase efficiency.

-Economic Policy: Implementation of neoliberal policies, focusing on reducing taxes, lowering public spending, and promoting free-market principles.

-Immigration: Stronger control of national borders and, at times, demands for the expulsion of illegal immigrants.

-Cultural and Social Issues: Counteracting left-wing ideologies, emphasizing traditional Spanish values, and opposing policies like gender violence laws. 

Another more accurate review of Vox comes from El País in English in an old article here. 

From Público here: ‘Abascal is sucking up to Musk for his insults to Sánchez, and Twitter users are clear about it: "What a bootlicker!"’. Some less than friendly criticism from ‘tuiteros’ are featured within. 

Next up on the regional elections, is Castilla y León for March 15th. This is another PP-held region, with Vox at its heels. 

‘The Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, plans to travel to China next April in what would be his fourth visit in just over three years, according to government sources who spoke to Europa Press’.

Gabriel Rufián (ERC) is trying his hand at binding the left-of-PSOE parties together (all for one and one for all). Not much chance, we know, but he’s a clever guy. From Electomania here, ‘Gabriel Rufián will begin a "tour" on February 18th with left-wing leaders to explore a unified candidacy that would bring together the entire political spectrum to the left of the PSOE in preparation for future elections…’ His idea could provide anything up to 75 deputies, giving Sánchez a solid boost says El Plural here. Sad to report, he’s not doing well so far, as each leftist group holds on to its pearls. 

‘Voting against your own pension: the inexplicable support of many retirees for the PP. Spain already knows about the miserly 0.25% pension increases, about medical co-payments, fear, and not making ends meet’. El Plural wonders at the impoverished supporters of the Partido Popular and Vox. 

The Elcano Royal Institute (pdf) has produced a massive study titled ‘España en el mundo en 2026: perspectivas y desafíos’. This annual report is divided into various thematic sections: Spain's influence and image abroad; security; economy and technology; climate and energy; globalization, development, and governance; transatlantic relations; Europe; neighbourhood relations; Latin America; and democracy, rights, and gender… 

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Gibraltar: 

‘In accordance with European regulations, the Spanish government is preparing to install a new biometric European Security Service (ESS) system at the land border crossing between La Línea de la Concepción and Gibraltar, with full implementation starting March 30th’. Government sources have confirmed the new measure following several inter-ministerial meetings says As here. 

…...

Europe: 

The second-round of the presidential elections in Portugal have been won by the socialist candidate António José Seguro with 66% over the far-right André Ventura (34%). 

From Sweden Herald here: ‘Donald Trump's statements on Greenland and Nato may make him a liability rather than an asset for Europe's far right in upcoming elections. However, he still has support for his immigration policies’. 

Escudo Digital says ‘Trump's outburst against the EU becomes a blessing: Europe is turbocharging its investment in technology. The great wave of trade and geopolitical threats that has hit the European Union like a political tsunami is also having positive effects, although it remains to be seen whether the EU is truly capable of reaching an agreement and providing the goods’. 

Maldita makes the point: ‘No, migrants who benefit from the extraordinary regularization will not have full European legal status to cross into any other country of the European Union and stay to work or reside’ (Neither do we Brit residents with our TIE – you need to be from an EU country). 

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Health: 

From elDiario.es here. ‘The Health Ministry pushes for law to curb hospital privatization. The new law aims to halt healthcare privatization by imposing extra requirements for outsourcing the management of public hospitals and establishing additional oversight mechanisms. In Spain, one in three public hospitals is managed by a private company’. 

From Grupo Tortuga here, ‘Private healthcare is making a profit: It's raising prices and pushing out elderly patients or those with chronic illnesses’. Here’s the deal: ‘That’s the business model: charging you while you were healthy. When you stop being profitable, they send you back to the public healthcare system’. 

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Corruption: 

46 people died in the train crash in Ademuz (Córdoba) a couple of weeks ago. According to one source, the passengers’ luggage and belongings were left at the scene and various looters got into the broken carriages and took what they could – including phones, watches (!) and wallets. 

‘Alicante City Council detects more officials benefiting from social housing developments. The local government has reported to the Valencian regional government the names of municipal staff and those awarded housing in the Les Naus residential complex, pending an investigation into possible irregularities in the application process’. The story at Levante. 

From Transparency International here, the Corruption Perceptions Index 2025. Spain could do better – coming in behind places like Botswana and Fiji and only one ahead of Italy (Thanks Jake).

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Media: 

‘New documents show the tactics Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok execs used to disrupt learning, prey on minors, and co-opt the PTA to control the narrative with parents’: a sinister essay from The Tech Oversight Project here. ‘…documents provide smoking-gun evidence that Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok all purposefully designed their social media products to addict children and teens with no regard for known harms to their wellbeing, and how that mass youth addiction was core to the companies’ business models…’ 

In the bestselling memoir ‘Careless People’ from Sarah Wynn-Williams (who worked seven years at Facebook), we read ‘In Meta, they take great care to strictly limit their (own) children's screen time: "At work, parents boast about not allowing their teenage children to have mobile phones, which only underscores that these executives fully understand the damage their products inflict on young minds." For the rest of the world, they demand unlimited access…’ 

And while we are on the subject… The Guardian has: ‘Revealed: How Substack makes money from hosting Nazi newsletters. The site takes a cut of subscriptions to content that promotes far-right ideology, white supremacy and antisemitism’.  

As we know from experience, for some reason the Spanish take more notice of foreign reports than they do of their own. Well, sometimes. Here’s The Daily Telegraph: ‘Move over Ireland, there is a new worst country in Europe. Spain has become a Left-wing pariah state thanks to the radical politics of its socialist prime minister’. The dismal report is presented to Spanish readers via Público here. DT readers are told that ‘…Sánchez released a video seemingly designed to encourage that trend (a turn towards Vox). In it, he defended a radical new policy of granting legal status to 500,000 undocumented migrants. It was all about “dignity, community and justice,” he insisted. Really, of course, it was about boosting the Spanish economy, which is floundering under the weight of workforce shortages and an ageing population…’ (the writer appears to think they’ll all get the vote). After complaining about the new plan to cut social media use for the young, he ends with ‘Amazingly, Spain remains economically healthy, buoyed by post-Covid tourism. But how long before it gives way? There’s a lesson in there somewhere. Sadly, it’s one that our own prime minister will almost certainly fail to learn’. Público runs some Twitter jokes making fun of the Telegraph article including the psychologist asking the patient: ‘Are these radical politics in the room with us right now?’ Here, by the way, is the background to the DT columnist. 

Opinion from The Chorizo Chronicles here: ‘Mass Migration Madness! Spain plans to legalize 500,000 immigrants’. 

‘Half of the misinformation on X relates to immigration. The study 'Entre el ruido y los datos', conducted by Fad Juventud, reveals that almost 20% of posts on this social network contain some type of misinformation’. More on this here. 

Another hoax by the right: ‘Rafael Hernando (PP) accuses Pedro Sánchez of using “actors” to swell his events. A tweet from the PP deputy is being widely shared on social media, although analysis of the images reveal that they all belong to the same event’. 

Spain’s place in the world, says an opinion piece at El Huff Post that appeared last week, ‘is often sabotaged not so much by foreign influence as by its own fifth columnists who’s only interest appears to be to hold back progress for their own cynical ends’. 

Carlos Hernández de Miguel was a Spanish journalist and writer. He died on 3 February 2026. From The Guardian here:  If you are reading this it is because I’m dead: here’s what I want to tell you about how to live. Leaving this world in an age of lies and cruelty, my last message is simple: don’t give up on truth’. 

On YouTube, an interview on CNN here: ‘The Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Europe's rearmament’. 

The Guardian again: ‘As Bad Bunny showed at the Super Bowl, el español is the coming thing. No wonder it’s now the top GCSE language choice in the UK’ 

…...

Ecology: 

Is Andalucía going to change its climate? From Diario de Almería here: ‘Andalucía, a rain zone after the polar vortex collapses. Climate studies link North Atlantic blocking patterns with wet spells on the Iberian Peninsula, particularly affecting the southern provinces’.

‘Weeks of relentless storms are now hitting Spain where it hurts most: the fields. Farmers across the south and west of the country are warning of “catastrophic” crop losses after Storm Marta battered the Iberian Peninsula with more torrential rain, strong winds, and snowfall…’ From InSpain News here. 

‘The damage caused in Andalucía by the series of storms will exceed €4,000 million in agriculture and roads alone. The Government will provide advance aid to affected municipalities without waiting for the European Solidarity Fund, and the Regional Government will conduct a thorough review of its budget to mitigate the damage’ says El Mundo here. 

From The Olive Press here: ‘Long-term forecasting models predict continued storms, torrential rain and flooding for Spain all the way into March’. Elsewhere, ‘Following downstream from Benoján, a second town in Málaga has been ordered to evacuate as the historic Montejaque dam near Ronda fills to capacity for the first time in its 100-year existence. Emergency services cleared 22 residents from Jimera de Líbar on Tuesday as the crisis at the so-called ‘Ghost Dam’ intensified downstream’. 

On Saturday, Europa Press reported that ‘The Marbella City Council (Málaga) has removed a total of 374 tons of invasive algae in a single day from the Nueva Andalucía beach, as part of the special operation activated to deal with these episodes that affect the municipality's coastline with increasing frequency’. 

…...

Various: 

From El Periódico here: ‘Anxiety, distraction and poor performance: these are the side effects of mobile phone use in children under sixteen’. 

Gambling addiction in Spain affects 8.4% of young people between 14 and 18 years old and is skyrocketing online. More here. 

 A few bits of one province can appear in another, for reasons best known to historians. The most famous is the Condado de Treviño (with 228 square kilometres), a piece of Burgos situated in Álava (the Basque Country). Valencia also has a chunk of land, known as the Rincón de Ademúz (370km2), located between Cuenca and Teruel. Smaller examples are the Valle de Villaverde – a Cantabrian area in Vizcaya (the Basque Country), a bit of Madrid-owned empty land called Dehesa de la Cepeda is in Segovia and Petilla de Aragón isn’t in Aragón but in Navarra. More at Fronteras here.

‘The Andalusian government hands over the data of 738,502 underage students to Google. The Data Protection Agency has issued a warning to the regional government, although with no financial penalty, for violating privacy requirements for the profiles of 2,600 schools in the region’. El País has the story (and, of course, now so do Google and their friends). 

‘The President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has announced the awarding of the International Medal of the Community of Madrid to the United States, in the year that commemorates the 250th anniversary of its independence for being "the main beacon of the free world"’. From Europa Press here. 

From The University of Delaware studying abroad program here ‘Spain: Appreciating Spanish Culture’. Some nice pictures of Granada and Seville. See also ‘First Fútbol Game in Spain’ here. 

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See Spain: 

Karethe Linaae writes for Eye on Spain here: ‘I’m exploring lesser-known Andalusian towns through walks with their mayors. My starting point is Cartajima, a tiny village in Málaga’s Genal Valley, around a 40-minute drive from the Costa del Sol. If you don’t know the town, you’re not alone: as few people make the trip here. So, what are we waiting for?’ 

…...

Letters: 

My book collection.

A love of reading means a lifetime of pleasure. Nothing better than a physical book, they are an enhancement to any home. But nothing beats a Kindle for the unbelievable utility of the thing. The newest ones especially, they are much smaller and lighter than most books and you can read them anywhere without need for lighting - including in the brightest of sunlight and when you leave home you can bring thousands of books in your pocket.

I love books but to guarantee I can read whatever I want, at any time, wherever I am - has to be the Kindle.

KS

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Finally: 

Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Halftime Show on YouTube here.