BoT 620

 

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

For Subscriptions and Tip Jar, go here.

email:  lenox@businessovertapas.com  

***Now with Facebook Page (Like!)***

Business over Tapas and its writers are not responsible for unauthorised copying or other improper use of this material.

Subscription and e-mail information in our archives is never released to third parties.

 

 

February 19 2026            Nº 620          

 

 

 

Editorial: 

Now I’m getting a little older, I have taken to walking each day. Severe walking. This means, according to those health experts that infest the Internet, that I must haul in my stomach, straighten my back, and walk, purposely, at least six or eight or ten thousand steps a day, according to whichever adviser catches me first.

I used to take the dog with me for my peregrinations, but I’ve noticed that, unlike me, he reckons that age is an excuse to stay home and chew on a good book.

To measure my steps, I have an application on my mobile phone. I scored six or seven thousand yesterday, including the steps I took when I stupidly left the phone on the bed.

Another health expert tells me that I must walk along my route – I live between the countryside and the beach – with a sense of awe as this will refresh my brain.

If you prefer to use a kayak for your exercise, then it would of course be a sense of oar.

And thus, I walk purposefully along the beach, winking gamely at the passersby, and sigh mightily each time I notice a seagull, a flowering sandwort or a naked woman going past on a pedalo.

The day before yesterday, I had to go to the townhall to get a paper. This means in our pedestrians-only pueblo, parking at the back then walking up to the village itself: through, up and over and down the narrow streets on the other side. And then back. Steps mostly, and no cheating. Then (fortifying myself en route with a cold glass of beer), I drove down to the urbanisation on the beach where there’s currently no parking because the city fathers are building a parking-lot (enjoy the irony) to see a lawyer, who promptly sent me back up to the village again for another bit of paper.  

And that day, wonder of wonders, I scored around 9,000 steps just chasing documents.

This made me think: what kind of numbers does a waiter do, or a barman – just with his daily toing and froing between the coffee machine and the icebox? Probably a hell of a lot more than nine thousand. Come to think of it, I once did 20,000 without leaving the stables.

It’s been windy though. Wind is not kind to those who travel on their own energy. I used to particularly hate cycling into the wind. It’s worse than rain or probably (although I wouldn’t swear to it) snow. The wind makes forward motion very stressful, and the sense of awe can go and hang itself. 

 The Indalo is Almería's mascot

On this occasion – last weekend it was – the wind was blowing strongly. With gusts, says my phone knowledgeably, of up to 75kph. Joining the throng of people holding onto their hats and looking for their cars were sundry bits of cardboard, leaves, some small branches and a surprised looking seagull apparently flying backwards.

I started out on my enjoyable power-walk, tummy in and taking due notice of my surroundings (including a plastic wheelie-bin that suddenly overtook me on the straight), but decided, as the rain started, that I should probably turn around and head back to the car: leaning forward into the wind to do so with tiny faltering steps.

Then, as I passed the supermarket, I had an idea: twice round and up and down the aisles would easily put me in the black for the day.

As for the awe, I bought a chocolate bar.  

…...

Housing: 

Sur in English has ‘Spanish government pledges €23,000 million (annually) for housing via the 'España Crece' sovereign wealth fund. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez targets the construction of 15,000 affordable rental homes per year to tackle the national housing shortage’. 

From The Olive Press here: ‘Spain is selling six houses a minute – one in three paid in cash – despite prices soaring by double digits. In 2025, the number of sales rose to levels not seen since 2008 when the property bubble burst, with 705,357 transactions – 10.7% more than in the previous year’. 

‘Rocío, owner of five apartments: "I rent out 75 rooms at 400 euros each; I filter applications carefully to avoid wasting time." With rents skyrocketing, small investors have found a goldmine: renting rooms by the room. This growing trend seeks maximum profitability where prices can't possibly rise any further’. Item from El Huff Post here. 

The vulture funds (as they are unkindly known in Spain) of course buy entire apartment blocks for profit. ‘Spain, a tax haven for vulture funds in the home buying market: and the personalities who made it possible’ An exposé from Cuatro here (with video). 

‘Canadian asset manager Brookfield is in exclusive negotiations with Blackstone to acquire Fidere, its rental housing Real Estate Investment Trust (SOCIMI in Spanish) which has a portfolio of approximately 5,300 homes. According to market sources, Brookfield's proposal prevailed over those submitted by TPG Angelo Gordon and Patron Capital, the other two funds that reached the final stage of a competitive bidding process in which firms such as Morgan Stanley Real Estate and Stepstone also expressed interest. The deal could close next month says Idealista here.

‘Tenants demand state intervention in the sale of tens of thousands of homes by vulture funds. Blackstone, Azora, Cerberus, and Ares have begun selling tens of thousands of apartments acquired at bargain prices after the 2008 housing crisis. Tenants' unions are demanding state intervention to recover what was once public property’. From El Salto. 

The Objective says that ‘Moroccans, Romanians, and Britons lead mortgage foreclosures among foreigners’. The Moroccans top the statistics for foreclosures, accounting for 11.34% of all registered certificates. The Brits just behind at 10.47%. 

From El Día here. ‘Santa Cruz de Tenerife begins the forced expropriation of the Hotel de Añaza with zero euros for the owners. The land occupied by the unfinished building belongs to 900 owners from Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Liechtenstein, and Spain’ 

…...

Tourism: 

From El País here: ‘Mass tourism is strangling the finances of eight major coastal municipalities. These destinations account for 19% of overnight stays in Spain and warn that they dedicate 40% of their budget to providing services to tourists’. We read that Adeje, Arona, Benidorm, Calvià, Lloret de Mar, Salou, San Bartolomé de Tirajana and Torremolinos) host some 9% of all foreign tourists and concentrate 19% of overnight stays but receive hardly any help to provide these services. 

…...

Finance: 

From Spain in English here: ‘Spain approves 3.1% minimum wage rise to €1,221 per month, over 14 pay-slips’ (1,424.50€ per month). El Huff Post notes that this includes domestic workers.

…...

Politics: 

The latest poll from the CIS gives the PSOE a ten-point lead over the PP with Vox nipping at its heels (32.6%, 22.9% and 18.9%). Not many people believe the CIS which is operated by a socialist (Gasp!), but time will tell. 

From Bilbao Hiria here: ‘Feijóo on the brink: the PP's shift to the far right fails to absorb Vox voters while bleeding dry its moderate flank’. 20Minutos says: ‘The PP chooses to reach an understanding with Vox instead of Sánchez, and the PSOE responds: "Finally they’ve taken off their masks"’. "Our parties are not the priority here, but the Spanish people," says PP spokesperson Ester Muñoz sententiously. Nueva Tribuna says dismissively that ‘Feijóo is just a puppet controlled by the most extreme part of his party’. 

In the two recent regional elections (Extremadura and Aragón), the PP won but needs the support of a strengthening Vox. The PP leader for Extremadura appears to have submitted to the far-right says El País here. Vox insists upon leading four departments within the regional government based in Mérida: ‘Economy, Agriculture, Interior and Industry plus the first vice-presidency and the full implementation of their electoral program’. "I want Vox to be my government partner; we have far more in common than what divides us", she meekly tells OKDiario here. In Aragón, Vox has yet to sit down with the PP to discuss any deal. 

If Vox isn’t enough over the line, then there are some parties even further to the right. Se Acabó la Fiesta (three, now one seat in Brussels); the long-lasting Falange Española de las JONS, and now a new one has been registered as a legal political party. From El Mundo here: ‘The organization Núcleo Nacional, monitored by security forces as a far-right youth group and organizer of protests against the PSOE outside their headquarters on Calle Ferraz in Madrid, has registered as a political party under the name Noviembre Nacional. Using the same logo as Núcleo Nacional, this organization has been registered as a political party since February 10th, with its headquarters in Valladolid. Enrique Lemus is listed as its president, and it operates nationwide. "We're going all in. This time it's for real," the organization stated on its X profile, referring to its registration as a political party…’ 

…...

Gibraltar: 

From EU Observer here: ‘Gibraltar to regain freedom of movement within days, in post-Brexit legal tidy-up. Gibraltar will finally obtain free movement into Spain within the coming days, after the European Commission confirmed it had published the draft law that will govern the UK territory’. The article quotes a text from The European Commission. 

…...

Europe: 

‘…At the Munich Security Conference over the weekend, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s endorsement of white Christian nationalism does not appear to have swayed European countries to abandon their defence of democracy and join the U.S.’s slide toward authoritarianism…’ From Heather Cox Richardson here. 

…...

Corruption: 

Following fresh information from the intelligence services, Euro News says that ‘Morocco spied on Sánchez's mobile phone using the Israeli Pegasus software for over a year. The device was hacked between October 2020 and November 2021, amidst the migration crisis. In total, Rabat had access to the president's communications for fourteen months…’ 

‘VIP boxes at the Bernabéu stadium, Hermès handbags, and Michelin-starred restaurants: the luxurious life of the leader of the 'narcopoli' network. The arrest of the former head of the UDEF (Central Unit for Economic and Fiscal Crime) in Madrid, Óscar Sánchez, and 14 other people linked to drug trafficking at the end of 2024. The investigation also links him to real estate holdings worth more than 32 million euros’. The story is at El Independiente. 

‘The social housing scandal implicates Alicante's elite and the PP: wealthy families with salaries of up to €70,000 were awarded subsidized apartments says elDiario.es here.  Councillors, architects, children of notaries, and high-ranking officials were among those awarded apartments in the controversial development, which is being investigated by the Public Prosecutor's Office’. More on the social housing in Alicante which attracted the wrong sort of tenant comes from Levante here: ‘The treasurer of Sant Joan d’Alacant Town Hall and the son of a PP councillor from San Vicente de Raspeig also have subsidized housing in Les Naus, Alicante’. The promotion in which people linked to the Alicante City Council and the Generalitat have been awarded possession are now in the hands of the Justice system. 

While in the USA, one can ‘take the fifth amendment’, here in Spain, it’s OK to lie if you are a politician protecting yourself says the Madrid Provincial Court. ‘Lying in a parliamentary committee is "legitimate" when facing charges. The court accepts that a lack of truthfulness can be protected by the right against self-incrimination’. 

…...

Courts: 

‘Continuous legal delays benefit Ayuso's number two and three in the Madrid PP and her partner. The Deputy Secretary of Organization, Ana Millán, has been charged since 2022 with four corruption offenses; Alfonso Serrano's testimony in a case of revealing secrets has been postponed three times; and the trial for the first of the two cases against Alberto González Amador could be delayed until 2027’. From elDiario.es here. 

Cadena Ser has: ‘The Spanish Tax Agency has asked the judge to expand the 'Montoro Case' after detecting payments totalling €35.5 million over five years. A new report added to the case file reveals transfers to the wife of the former Finance Minister under the Partido Popular and denounces the lack of access to the bank accounts of the main defendants’. 

From La Razón here: ‘José María Aznar considers legal action against the foreign minister José Manuel Albares for his mention of Aznar’s presence in Jeffrey Epstein's files. FAES (Aznar’s think tank) denounces "slanderous insinuations" unbecoming of a member of the government’. 

…...

Media: 

I think, since before the Civil War, Spain’s weakness has always been a divided left – where policies, ideas and personalities have broken any chance of unity. The way of things, perhaps. The Right wants to win. The Left wants to be preachy. 

Editorial at elDiario.es here: ‘…The Partido Popular has once again blocked the renewal of one of the key institutions of the courts, just as it did with the General Council of the Judiciary. For two months now, the terms of a third of the Constitutional Court have expired. These are four of its twelve justices, appointed by the Senate, whose terms Feijóo refuses to replace (note, the PP has a majority in the Senado). The PP maintains this blockade for the same old reasons: it's waiting for a more opportune moment. If it were to act now, it would have to reach an agreement with the PSOE because the Spanish Constitution requires here a three-fifths majority in the Senate. The PP is counting on a massive collapse of the left in the upcoming general elections; a debacle that would allow them to appoint these four justices by, at worst, reaching an agreement with Vox…’

The main TVE news/chat shows are ‘Mañaneros 360’ weekdays from 10.35 to 3.00pm together with ‘Malas Lenguas’ from 7.40pm to 8.25pm with Javier Ruiz in the morning slot and Jesús Cintora in the evening (they look, at least to me, like twins). The shows have high audience ratings but tend to speak frankly about the conservatives. Thus, we read of the ‘Right-wing manoeuvre to shut down the two shows as they are ‘not impartial’’. Unlike all the rest of the TV news shows on the privately-owned or regional PP channels (ahem!). 

Canal Sur (Andalusian public TV) workers are calling for "Black Tuesdays" against political manipulation, following the example of the "Black Fridays" at Galician television. The protest denounces staff shortages, cronyism in hiring practices, and biased reporting in favour of the regional government, which is controlled by the Partido Popular’. 

The correspondent for the ABC in Paris has written a book called ‘De la Europa de las libertades a la Europa de las extremas derechas’ – and has been fired since the ABC (a conservative newspaper) doesn’t allow the expression ‘extrema derecha’ or ‘far-right’ in its columns. Somebody comments that it’s better to say ‘nostálgico’ instead. 

From Salon here: ‘Swarms of AI bots are threatening democracy. The level of coordination among inauthentic online agents is unprecedented’. 

…...

Ecology: 

The Guardian here has: ‘‘Daunting but doable’: Europe urged to prepare for 3ºC of global heating. Keeping Europe safe from extreme weather “is not rocket science”, a top researcher has said, as the EU’s climate advisory board urges countries to prepare for a catastrophic 3ºC of global heating’. Didn’t we used to call it ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change’? 

…...

Various: 

From El Mundo here: ‘The two sides of the coin regarding the ten million foreign-born residents: one in three of those living in the Balearic Islands was born in another country, compared to just 6% in Extremadura’. An essay here notes that the story has a certain amount of manipulation: ‘ Not everyone born in Spain is Spanish, and not everyone born abroad is a foreigner’. The true number of foreign residents is 7,243,561 (apparently). 

The Guardia Civil calls for all immigrants to be naturalised must be obliged to present a criminal record from their country of origin. Including the ones who ‘have lost their papers’. Even we Brits know that that’s not as easy as it sounds… 

From Público here: ‘Around 450 Spaniards served in the Israeli army during the Gaza Strip genocide. Declassified UK has published a list of the number of foreign nationals who allegedly participated in the siege of Gaza. Americans, French, and Russians lead…’ The Spanish combatants could be investigated for participating in acts of genocide says ABC. 

From El País here: ‘Spain promises Cuba food and medicine in the face of Washington's pressure, but not oil. The Spanish Foreign Minister welcomes his Cuban counterpart on his way back to Havana after visiting Vietnam and China in search of aid’. Mexico, in allowing flights to Cuba to refuel in their territory, reminds us of the Berlin Airlift of 1948 – 1949. 

‘Eight out of ten Spaniards see Trump as a danger to world peace, according to the CIS’. The joke goes that the rest of them live in Madrid. We read that ‘76% of Spaniards have a "bad" or "very bad" opinion of the US president’. The story at Europa Press here. ‘Trump supporters target Pedro Sánchez: “Europe must get rid of him, no matter the methods.” Viral tweets from the American far right spread extreme messages and theories about an “invasion” due to Sánchez’s immigration policies’, says Catalunya Press here. A tweet from the influencer Joey Mannarino: ‘The number one priority for Europe must be to end Pedro Sánchez. I don't care about how or methods, it's no longer a matter of the Spaniards and what they choose. All of Europe is in true danger because of this globalist psychopath, thousands of years of history, cultures and battles for nothing for the personalistic electoral desires of this sociopath, some government or intelligence agency must end him’. 

From La Razón here: ‘The first Spanish trans athlete to reach a men's podium: "I would dominate if I were running against women, but it's not fair... we're still men". Mar Vázquez, 61, began her transition four years ago but doesn't see it as ethical to compete in women's categories: "I know what it costs, and I don't want to take any woman's place"’. 

The way to Eurovision (which Spain won’t be attending this year) lies through the Benidorm Fest concerts. This year’s winner was Tony Grox & Lucycalys with 'T amaré'. 

From The Olive Press here: ‘Empty Spain in focus: Crazy stat reveals that 90% of the population lives in just 2% of the land – and it’s getting worse’ That means roughly 40 million people are crammed into hotspots like Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Málaga, and the Costa del Sol, while Spain’s interior continues to empty out as residents move away…’ 

From Eye on Spain here: ‘Mysterious Tales from Spain. Spain is rich in mythology, the entire country is home to towns, cities and buildings that are renowned on account of legends involving ghosts that inhabit them, paranormal phenomena within their walls or tales of impossible love…’

…...

See Spain: 

‘The most spectacular Parador in Spain is a 12th-century castle in Sigüenza (Guadalajara),  the most beautiful medieval city in the world, says Viajar here. 

‘Spain's most beautiful market is called 'the cathedral of gastronomy': with almost 300 stalls, a modernist style, iron and glass domes and a Site of Cultural Interest’. The market is the Mercado Central in Valencia. From Viajar again. 

Murcia’s second city is Cartagena. There’s an interesting ten-minute video in English on the history and sundry attractions of Cartagena on YouTube here: ‘The City that Spain Forgot’. 

…...

Finally: 

Paté de Fuá with Llévame En Un Beso on YouTube here.