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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Editorial:
The Partido Popular is in some choppy waters right now, with some issues floating up to the surface that they would rather see staying down there with the fishies.
Carlos Mazón, for example, over in Valencia, whose actions during the late October flood – known as the DANA – have yet to be explained. Short of airing the details on that fateful day (we suppose that he had his attention on some other subject) he is under greater pressure than ever to resign. To avoid any upsets, the April meeting of the European Popular Party, due to be held in Valencia, has now been moved to the safer shores of Madrid.
Another ‘baron’ – as the regional presidents are often called, is a baroness. This Thursday March 13th, a documentary on her mishandling of the covid crisis in 2019 will be shown on national TV. It’s called the 7291 and refers to the number of elderly people who expired in the residencias after medical aid was refused them. ‘They would have died anyway’, Isabel Díaz Ayuso said on occasion in the Madrid parliament. Between the show on the TV (the PP was fruitlessly trying to have it pulled), and the problem with the boyfriend and his tax position, Ayuso is becoming a trifle toxic. Hitherto, she had been doing so well and was tipped as Feijóo’s successor.
Another potential replacement for Feijóo (when he goes) is Juanma Moreno, still popular but with a few underreported issues – mainly his privatisations, some cavalier dealings and the issue of refusing – in solidarity with his jefe, mind – to take a 50% discount off the large Andalusian state-debt. We are talking of 18,791 million euros, and the corresponding drop in interest payments (money that, evidently, could be spent elsewhere).
While Feijoo is what he is – a second-rater who, like Mariano Rajoy, doesn’t speak a word of English – his business-woman wife has recently been attracting unwelcome attention in Galicia over a property with exclusive beach access.
In an attempt to deflect attention towards the manifold crimes of the PSOE, last week a short video was made, using artificial intelligence, to show (a very muscly looking) Pedro Sánchez and his six-pack abdomen, together with his wife and some other senior figures in the socialist hierarchy, enjoying a jolly day bathing in the warm seas of the Dominican Republic, under the title: ‘The Island of Corruption’. The pot calling the kettle black.
Understandably, the President of the island didn’t appreciate the joke and the Partido Popular had to quickly pull the offending vid from their website, as Pedro Sánchez was obliged to apologise in the name of the Spanish people for the upset.
The International Women’s Day was last Saturday, and while the womenfolk hit the streets (despite the rain), Feijóo was telling reporters in a folksy way that his mum and granny were both women, you know, and they enjoyed all sorts of freedom (in, er, Franco’s Spain). Vox meanwhile came out with a jolly feminist video to mark the occasion, warning that you girls will all be wearing a hijab by 2030. If not sooner, hey?
Perhaps the answer is to just let Sánchez get on with things – after all, he’s doing pretty well, considering…
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Housing:
From Property News from Spain (blog) here: ‘Property Law in Spain – Changes for 2025. The Spanish property market in 2025 presents a dynamic mix of opportunities and challenges, marked by significant legal updates affecting rentals, evictions, taxes, and purchases. This article provides a comprehensive overview of these changes, empowering landlords, tenants, and buyers to make informed decisions…’
From 20Minutos here: ‘The purchase of new homes grows by 23%’. We read: ‘2024 was a year of great activity in the real estate market. Almost 642,000 home sales were made, 10% more than in 2023 and the second largest annual volume of transactions since 2007, only surpassed by the 650,000 in 2022. The increase was particularly reflected in transactions on new-build homes, which shot up by 23.4%…’ However, there is still an estimated shortfall of half a million homes.
These are the three cheapest cities to live in (and why) says El Confidencial here: Jaén, Cáceres and Huelva.
Of course, the available homes aren’t always where one needs them to be. Take the modest village of Santiago de Calatrava in Jaén. There are many places for sale (the town has shrunk from 3,000 to 600 in 25 years), and there are even rentals available for those with a job for as little as 50€ a month says El País here.
Some homes are under-used, says El Blog Salmón here: ‘Another push to raise housing prices. In Spain, more and more people are living alone or demanding their own homes’.
From Canarian Weekly here: ‘The Bank of Spain is concerned that foreign buyers purchase 20% of properties in the Canary Islands. Accessing affordable housing in the Canary Islands, particularly for young people, has become an increasingly challenging issue. While potential solutions such as building more public housing or market intervention are often suggested, there are significant obstacles, including the growing trend of foreign buyers purchasing properties for use as holiday rentals’.
The issue of people camping within the Madrid airport. From 20Minutos here: ‘AENA threatens to evict 400 homeless people and asylum seekers sleeping in Barajas Airport, and the City Council urges people to avoid «hasty» solutions’. A journalist spends a night with them here: ‘There’s nowhere else to go’.
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Tourism:
To make things easier… or more trying… or to justify a number of extra clerical jobs… perhaps to protect us from terrorists, Bible salesmen and itinerant accordion players… Whatever the reason, the UK is calling for an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) from April 2 for all foreigners. Much like the yet to be fired up European Travel Information and Authorisation (ETIAS) put in to bother visitors to the EU. Spanish News Today has the story here.
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Finance:
From Spanish Property Insight here: ‘A recent report from the Tax Foundation (Wiki) highlights how Spain’s tax system is becoming increasingly uncompetitive, particularly for property owners. With one of the highest property tax burdens in the OECD, Spain is driving away investment and stifling economic growth’.
Sur in English brings us ‘Pensioners in Spain are increasingly receiving more money than they have contributed, except for a couple of groups. Experts have warned that, without reform, the typical retiree could eventually receive more than double what they have contributed during their working life’. The exceptions are those workers with a short working life and those who choose to take early retirement. (Thanks David).
Well, and then there’s me. I live off a pensión no-contributiva – although I paid in around eleven years (plus the stamps for all those who worked for my newspaper, The Entertainer). Business over Tapas: no billionaire owner!
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Politics:
From elDiario.es here: ‘The housing plan, the reduction of working hours (to 37.5 hours per week) and judicial reform: everything is at a standstill without a majority in Congress. Most strategic measures have not even begun their process through Parliament’. Junts per Catalunya is the problem – they won’t support the Government without fresh favours.
From The Guardian, an interview with Yolanda Díaz here: ‘If you fall into the dialogue of the far right, the far-right wins’: Spain’s deputy PM on the need for workers’ rights’. The article notes that ‘…she argues that boosting workers’ rights, and their living standards, has been positive for growth and productivity – and that raising living standards is the key to combating the growing threat from the far right. “I believe that we have to go on the offensive with a clearly differentiated model,” she says. “We have to give hope to working people, who are the majority of society.”
Pedro Sánchez is talking to all the parliamentary groups – except Vox – about the current issue of European rearmament. Says LaSexta here: ‘The President of the Government has responded to Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s criticism for leaving the far-right party out of the meetings that Sánchez will hold with the parliamentary groups to discuss the security of Europe and the war in Ukraine. Sánchez explains: «We are concerned about the security of Europe, not with the solitude of the far right», adding, «The more isolated the far right is, the safer Europe is»’.
From an editorial at elDiario.es (link here): ‘…The unreliability of the US, the constant threat from Russia, and the moral pressure (and blame) over Ukraine are pushing the EU to open complex, and very uncomfortable, talks on military spending with the left. Pedro Sánchez has pledged to achieve 2% of GDP for defence spending, but he wants cybersecurity or border protection to count toward softening the demands for purely military investment, for several reasons: he knows it could cause a schism with Sumar or even within Sumar itself; he knows he won’t have the support of several left-wing groups he needs in Congress; and, furthermore, it’s not clear that Spain will be able to pass a new budget…’
From Emprendedores here: ‘The so-called DOGE Movement in Spain focuses on the creation of an open-source platform called Auditoría Ciudadana, which allows citizens to access detailed information on public spending and participate in debates and proposals to improve efficiency and transparency in the management of public funds…’ The mastermind behind this is Martín Varsavsky (Jazztel and other telecommunication companies, Wiki) and evident admirer of the likes of Javier Milei and Elon Musk. There’s an interview with him from The Objective (a conservative Spanish portal) here: ‘Martín Varsavsky: If Sánchez is elected again in 2027, I will leave Spain’.
Ayuso is sometimes known as ‘La Fruta’. This is because when she whispered Hijo de Puta during a Pedro Sanchez speech in 2023, she explained that she had said ‘Me gusta la fruta’.
Opinion from the conservative ABC: ‘Mazón must go now’.
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Europe:
Whatever happened to our relationship with Washington? From The Guardian here: ‘Watershed moment: EU leaders agree plan for huge rise in defence spending. Leaders endorse Ursula von der Leyen proposal as French president calls Vladimir Putin ‘an imperialist who seeks to rewrite history’’. El Mundo has: ‘Sánchez’s promise to speed up spending to reach 2% in Defence is not enough for Von der Leyen: she is already aiming for a national investment «beyond 3%»’. The BBC says (en castellano): «Most European countries believe that the security of the whole of Europe is at stake, not just the sovereignty of Ukraine».
From elDiario.es here: ‘The EU reintroduces trade tariffs on the US starting April 1 in response to Trump’s trade war. The US tariffs on steel and aluminium went into effect this Wednesday. The European Commission will reapply the tariffs it imposed in response to Trump in 2018 on products such as Levi’s, Bourbon, and Harley-Davidson motorcycles. It will expand the list in mid-April’. Europe’s new tariffs are worth 26,000 million euros. Canada says it is liaising with the European Commission over their tariff response.
‘Portugal in trouble again: Prime Minister Luis Montenegro loses a vote of confidence. The country is heading for new early elections due to the scandal associated with an alleged conflict of interest with a family business belonging to the Portuguese leader’. The story is at El Huff Post here.
A ‘Stronger Europe, Buy European’ page is examined by El Periódico here.
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Corruption:
From Público here: ‘Anti-corruption opens an investigation into Vox for irregular financing. The socialist party accuses the party led by Santiago Abascal of using opaque methods to raise funds, as well as receiving illegal contributions from foreign sources’. We read elsewhere that the party has received 4.6 million euros ‘in opaque donations’ and could face economic and political sanctions, and even the partial suspension of their activities.
The autónomos, the self-employed, have their very own syndicate, known as ATA. It’s been run by the same fellow for twenty years. Now, in the union’s elections, the same Lorenzo Amor has once again come out on top; however, as elDiario.es points out, ‘The self-employed employers’ association ATA bused in dozens of employees and their families to vote in the re-election of Lorenzo Amor. Amor says that it is “normal” for the staff to vote, which he estimates at around sixty people between employees and companions, many of them brought by the Andalusian association, chaired (as it happens) by his brother’. Turns out, the Asociación de Trabajadores Autónomos was founded in 1995, by Lorenzo’s dad…
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Courts:
‘A judge condemns Alvise Pérez (Se Acabó la Fiesta) to pay 60,000 euros in compensation to Ábalos for defaming him. Judge Martín Vallejo affirms that the current MEP published intimate photos of the former minister in his house and implied that he had mental health problems: “He has no license to insult or belittle his political rival”’. Item from elDiario.es.
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Media:
‘Ciudad Clickbait’ (Barlin Libros, 2025) here, described by Revista AD as, ‘The book that explains (finally) the great housing crisis: “Town councils have stopped having their citizens at the centre; their aim is to be fashionable”. It seems that behind the high price of housing are tourist accommodations, but what is behind their enormous proliferation? Vicent Molins in an interview puts the spotlight on town councils and their efforts to ‘please’ everyone – except their residents…’ The priority of City Hall is to look out for its residents, not its visitors or its businessmen.
A recent comment from a resident in Barcelona was striking – ‘in the old days, you walked to where you wanted to go. Now you have to zigzag and shuffle past hoardes of visitors to get there…’ Probably taking care not to walk into someone taking a selfie.
From Público here: ‘The Government will soon give the green light to the Spanish AI law, based on applying the one approved in the European Parliament last year. The legislation will require, as the EU already does, to clearly identify images created by AI, something that the PP did not do in one of its latest videos released to attack the Government’. There could be fines of up to 35 million euros for this kind of manipulation.
Mind you (says a Facebook post) it’s very easy to make an Artificial Intelligence video about how awful one’s political enemies are…
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Ecology:
Climate Change, Global Warming, even forecasts for heavy rain or extended drought can raise the ire against the meteorologists in the breasts of the more deluded conspiracy theorists and chem-trail warriors who will either write some threatening drivel on their preferred social media or, as elDiario.es says, will make threats against the climate scientists themselves. The article is titled: “I’m scared, in the end people know where I’m working and even what my name is.”
From Diario de Almería here: ‘The recovery of medieval irrigation ditches in Almería, a «brake on desertification». Around a hundred volunteers were participating this past weekend in the recovery of these hydraulic works that supply two ponds in Los Cerricos, in Oria’. Small beans maybe, but the old Moorish system of acequias is now being re-examined. From Wiki here: ‘An acequia (from the Spanish Arabic assáqya, and this from the classical Arabic الساقية «al-sāqiyah», irrigator) is an open ditch or canal built to carry irrigation water for supplying populations or similar purposes. The hydrology of the ditches benefits ecological health, agricultural production and the maintenance of groundwater levels. The acequia is a resource that is easily controllable and extremely resistant to constant climatic changes…’
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Various:
Besides reading Business over Tapas for your current affairs, you may need other information about Spain to pass an immigration test says Diario As, with ‘These are the answers to four of the questions that will appear in the exams to obtain Spanish nationality’. It seems there are 25 questions, and you’ll need to get at least 15 right.
An anti-Trump demonstration has been called by Democrats Abroad for March 29th in the Plaza de Féliz Sáenz in Málaga 12.00h to 13.30h (all welcome!). The Olive Press has ‘US expats to hold anti-Trump rallies across Spain, citing ‘horror, disgust and deep sadness’.
El Plural brings us ‘Women against Francoism: repression, resistance and memory. It has largely been forgotten that the plight of women, beginning with the Civil War and then during the Franco period, went from resistance to repression’. We read under: ‘Punishment for female dissidents’ that ‘Exile, prison and social banishment were the price to pay for having challenged the patriarchal structure of Franco’s regime. Thousands of women were arrested and sentenced by military courts on charges of aiding rebellion, freemasonry or communism, with sentences ranging from prison to execution…’
‘A PP senator accumulates hundreds of donations for those affected by the DANA in Valencia in a basement. Mayor Emilio Navarro attributes the accumulation of these products donated for those affected by the DANA in Valencia, which have been spoiling for four months, to “logistical problems”’. A story from Cadena Ser.
A few Spaniards have appeared in ‘the Jeffrey Epstein List’ says El Plural here.
It’s not just El Algarrobico. There have been (and still are) lots of illegal buildings, demolished, under threat or planned along the Andalusian coast says Diario de Sevilla.
‘The first details of Comic-Con in Malaga revealed: these are the dates and venues. The European offshoot of this emblematic American geek fair will see at least three editions staged on the Costa del Sol’ says Sur in English here. From In Spain News here: ‘Game changer for pop culture fans: Málaga to host Europe’s first San Diego Comic-Con, turning it into a must-visit destination for fans of comics, video games, and science fiction’.
Where’s Sheldon when you need him?
‘Hammam حمّام Andalucía’s Arabic Spa Tradition’ from Karethe Linaae here.
Some tricks to generate tips from La Verdad here and others from Javea Connect here.
‘Censorship, the Opus Dei and a brand-new SEAT’ – a story from the end of Franco’s times, at Eye on Spain here.
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See Spain:
‘Benidorm as a base on your Costa Blanca vacation’, with Mapping Spain here.
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Finally:
Carlos Santana and Juanes with La Flaca live version. YouTube here.
