Business over Tapas 611

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
More information on Business over Tapas
December 11 2025 Nº 611

Editorial:
I made a little joke the other day and put it on Facebook. Contemplating my mortality, I noted that I was nevertheless younger than Trump, Bibi and Putin (at 79, 76 and 73 respectively), and with a bit of luck, would outlive the three of them.
Although, it’s true that they probably enjoy better medical attention than I do.
None of the three above-mentioned gentlemen appear to have any love for Spain.
I’ll leave it to The Gentle Reader to agree or disagree about those three leaders – and perhaps a few others (Kim Jong Un springs to mind) who are jostling for position behind them for the Planetary Ogre Awards – and attempt instead to focus here on their enmity with Spain and indeed Europe.
Let’s see: Donald Trump is annoyed with Spain for not leading the re-armament of Nato, for failing to buy enough American military hardware and for letting in too many immigrants – particularly those of the coloured persuasion.
Bibi Netanyahu is crushed over our negative reaction to his country’s unwelcome presence in Eurovision, the issues over the Tour de España this past summer and also our unremitting anger against his genocidal activities in Palestine.
Vladimir Putin simply doesn’t like any country that backs Ukraine and he has threatened Europe with a ‘if you want war, I’ll give you war’. A nasty piece of work in my opinion.
As for his current military occupation of as much of the Ukraine as he can obtain, it doesn’t appear that Donald Trump is as concerned over this as one might hope, as the recent American plan for the next two decades seems to suggest that they will be busy with their own back-yard, if one can so describe Venezuela and Columbia (and don’t forget Greenland), leaving Russia free to snaffle up bits of the old Soviet Union and presumably, allow Xi to absorb the lost province of Formosa, currently called Taiwan.
Meanwhile, the surviving bits of Europe can go play with our rigorously attached plastic bottle-caps.
Russia, too, is especially keen in manipulating the voting system in other countries to help the far-right, or (as in Catalonia in 2017) to divide the Europeans in any way that they can.
All these autocracies are actively trying to change our minds about this and that and they use fake-news, distortions, legions of preppy influencers, ample funding and false narratives to do so.
Europe, it would appear, has been having it too good, and we need to buckle down to the lofty ideals of our billionaires and pay more in taxes, take out private health insurance and keep working into our eighties.
We read that the Trump administration has just released its National Security Strategy, the blueprint for the next two decades.
That document announced the U.S. will back away from the global alliances formed in the wake of World War II and calls for making sure Nato, the organization that has opposed first Soviet and now Russian aggression since 1949, doesn’t continue to expand (so much for the Ukraine). The administration’s document calls for a world dominated not by a rules-based international order in which countries must respect each other’s sovereignty, but by a few major powers that control weaker nations in their sphere of influence.
The document also warns about Europe becoming less white, or as Trump says “Europe is facing the disappearance of its civilization” (unless we knuckle down). The BBC adds: at the same time ‘…the document hails the growing influence of "patriotic European parties" and says "America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit".
"We want Europe to remain European," says the American plan. At least, in a sort of far-right, anti-immigrant way. Trump, it appears, is against the influence of multilateralism – whether the United Nations, Nato or the European Union. ‘In recent days, the aggression against Brussels has reached an unprecedented level. Before, there have been many veiled attacks and insults, with malicious and condescending remarks, but now we are facing a full-blown assault, without any attempt at retraction, on the leadership and unity of Europe, because a divided bloc, where Euroscepticism grows, is better for them, just as it is for Russia. This way, we will be weak, and that leads to capitulation’, says El Huff Post.
And then there’s Elon Musk who is currently calling to 'Abolish the EU', for his own commercial reasons.
Russian officials appear to be happy with this U.S. foreign policy, and we read that ‘The Kremlin on Sunday welcomed US President Donald Trump’s move to stop calling Russia a direct threat and said his new national security strategy, which portrays European powers as in decline, largely accorded with Russia’s own perceptions’.
In short, it appears that a still disunited Europe is either on its own or must cozy up to the Chinese.
As the aggressive foreign powers attack us through fake-news, manufactured guilt, the Internet and Hollywood, we can only reply with our softer version of spreading our own culture through the Instituto Cervantes, the British Institute, the Goethe-Institut and so on.
Pedro Sánchez is one of our better statesmen, and he said in Los Cortes this Saturday during the celebrations of the anniversary of the Spanish Constitution that “Europe will never be under the tutelage of anyone, nor will it be a vassal of any political power or any national power from other geographical latitudes”. On Monday, the President of the European Council, António Costa, stated that the European Union would not accept any "threat of interference in European political life". He also referred to the U.S. document’s text which criticizes the "regulatory suffocation" of the European Commission.
Meanwhile, as Trump joyously received the FIFA’s peace prize, Pedro Sánchez was awarded the Mario Benedetti International Prize for the Fight for Human Rights and Solidarity 2025, an award he shares with the UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese.
Now, if we could just resolve the Ukraine issue in a sensible way.

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Housing:

From Noticias de Trabajo here: ‘The Ley de Alquiler (rental law) confirms that the landlord of a rented property cannot sell it to a third party without first offering it to the tenant. Although the owner has the right to sell the property even if it is rented, the tenant will have priority over third parties when it comes to acquiring it’.

From Spanish Property Insight here: ‘Andalucía’s new tourism law takes aim at illegal tourist rentals. Under the new framework, the regional government plans a major increase in inspections and a dramatic escalation in sanctions’.

‘When the countryside speaks English: foreigners are now the majority in Alicante towns. Several municipalities in the province are experiencing a quiet transformation with the arrival of foreign residents seeking tranquillity, as their presence helps revitalize the towns and curb depopulation’. Información says: ‘The street names are in Valencian, but as you walk along them, you mostly hear English. This is the case in some inland towns in Alicante, such as Hondón de los Frailes in the Medio Vinalopó region, and Llíber in the Marina Alta. In both municipalities, the foreign population already outnumbers the local population…’

From Idealista here: ‘US demand for Madrid homes grows as interest rises among Hispanics. Pressure from Donald Trump’s policies on immigrants may have increased Hispanic interest in Spain, particularly Madrid’.

‘An American woman who has lived in Spain for six years sums up the big difference with her country with a memorable phrase: "There, people dream, here you live the dreams"’.

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Tourism:

The Corner has ‘A new tourism record: 85.6 million tourists visit Spain in the first ten months of 2025 (up 3.5% over 2024), with an average spend of €1,383 per person’

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Finance:

The Corner says ‘The OECD congratulates Spain on its economic performance’.

‘Eighty percent of Spain's economic growth between 2019 and 2025 is due to the foreign population, according to the European Central Bank’. Infobae notes that ‘The eurozone's population is aging, and foreign workers are helping to address this challenge’.

From The Objective here: ‘An historic shift: China overtakes Germany as Spain's largest supplier. The Asian giant has been Spain's top importer for four consecutive months, with imports totalling €16,965 million.

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Politics:

El Huff Post introduces us to the four main candidates for the Extremadura elections for December 21st. The likelihood is that the PP will win but need Vox to gain a majority.

A pop-singer called Dani Martín says: "I encourage you not to vote for anyone. Let them realize that none of them represent us. They all want something from us, and we are worth too much," the former leader of El Canto del Loco, now a self-proclaimed bargain-basement political analyst, said during a concert’. Just, says Público here, what the right wing would like to hear. Martín later retracted his words…

elDiario.es here has: ‘The Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares defends peace in Ukraine without yielding to Russia: “A war of aggression cannot be rewarded”. Speaking in Qatar last weekend, he advocated for diplomacy and international norms to resolve the conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine, based on “justice”’.

The ElCano Institute looks at ‘Spain-Israel, a collision as unwanted as it is inevitable’.

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Europe:

From The Guardian here: ‘Ireland, Spain, Slovenia and the Netherlands pull out of Eurovision 2026 as Israel cleared to compete following the decision by the European Broadcasting Union not to hold a vote on Israel’s participation’.

From The Huff Post UK here: ‘Pro-Brexit Majority Of 2016 'Has Literally Died Out', Polling Expert Reveals. The founder of YouGov said there is now an 8.1 million majority in favour of rejoining the EU’.

Opinion from The Guardian here: ‘Trump’s new doctrine confirms it. Ready or not, Europe is on its own. We can move from defensive crouch to position of strength but only if we use the economic cards we have against US coercion’.

From NBC News here: ‘Europe will be 'unrecognizable' in 20 years due to immigration, the White House strategy document claims. Political experts told NBC News that the reports' language regarding "civilization erasure" and immigration echoes the "great replacement theory"’.

‘Trump Administration Warns About Europe Becoming Less White. "We want Europe to remain European," a new national security plan reads’. From The Huff Post (USA) here.

The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, November 2025. The full document in pdf format here.

Josep Borrell on Trump's interference in Europe: "It's a declaration of political war".

elDiario.es says that ‘Trump celebrates “with great optimism” the “growing influence of European patriotic parties.” That is to say, the rise of Giorgia Meloni, Viktor Orbán, and the far-right leaders who are achieving good results in other northern and central European countries such as Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, and Germany’.

From El Huff Post here: Nato stops mincing words: "If Russia tries to create problems for us, perhaps there are ways to create problems for them too."

From The Guardian here: ‘Half of Europeans see Trump as an enemy of Europe, survey finds. A nine-country poll finds half of people believe risk of war with Russia is high and three-quarters want to stay in EU’.

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Health:

The public/private Hospital Universitario de Torrejón (Madrid) – operated by Ribera Salud – is in the news these days after a recording was found of its representative asking the staff to give priority to easy-to-cure patients, and to re-use single-use material to help allay costs and – presumably – increase profits. This hospital is probably just an example of the current healthcare crisis in Spain (our own local hospital in Huercal Overa, Almería for example has an average of 224 days on the waiting list). Público says that ‘Banks, venture capital firms and Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund: who is doing business with Torrejón Hospital’ here.
Isabel González, former manager of the Alzira Hospital in Valencia, says: “What happened in Torrejón is not an isolated incident. It’s the modus operandi.”
The Ayuso government denies irregularities at Torrejón. The Madrid Health Department rejects the audios of Ribera's former CEO and describes the evolution of waiting lists at the hospital as "satisfactory".
The Ministry of Health has opened an investigation to determine if there have been irregularities at the Torrejón Hospital. "We are going to investigate every last detail of all these contracts and every last detail of all these breaches and all these obscenities," stated Minister Mónica García.
We read on Google that ‘A privately managed public hospital is a healthcare centre belonging to a public health service that is managed by a company or organization other than the regional health service’.

Xornal Galicia runs a piece about the privatisation of public hospitals in that autonomous region here with ‘Privatized Healthcare in Galicia: The Feijóo Model and its expansion from Ourense and Pontevedra to the National System, Ayuso, Bonilla and what is to come’.

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Corruption:

From Nueva Revolución here: ‘Vox's youth wing, known as Revuelta, is embroiled in a serious internal crisis that threatens to affect the entire party. Several members of its board have resigned and filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor's Office alleging irregularities in the management of funds raised to help the victims of the Dana storm that devastated Valencia in October 2024. The accusations point to the alleged misappropriation of donations that could amount to hundreds of thousands of euros, in a case that combines administrative opacity, personal interests, and political disputes…’

Regulating lobbying to avoid another 'Montoro case': pressure is part of the political game, but opacity is not. Two initiatives are being developed in Congress that seek to regulate the activities of interest groups so that citizens are aware of all their meetings with public officials. Experts and members of parliament analyse for Público the lobbying regulations that Spain needs, pending since the constitutional debate, and the essential elements that the law promoted by the government must include. The story here.

While the wife, a councillor for the PP, joined the calls against corruption in the recent anti-Government rally in Madrid and posted "Less mafia involvement, less backroom deals, and fewer tall tales" on her social networks, news broke of the imprisonment of her husband: ‘…the head of the National Police's Narcotics division in Valladolid was arrested three days earlier along with five other people accused of keeping part of the drug shipments seized in various police operations’.

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UCO:

Wiki has: The Central Operative Unit (Spanish: Unidad Central Operativa) is a specialized division of the Guardia Civil responsible for the investigation and prosecution of the most serious forms of crime and organized crime, whether national or international, as well as support to the Territorial Units of Judicial Police, that, due to lack of personnel or resources, or because the criminal field is more than one autonomous communities, require the support of this unit.

Euractiv brings us ‘Meet the Guardia Civil unit that became the rising star of Spain's latest political scandals. The UCO operates within the Guardia Civil’s Judicial Police Command and works exclusively under judicial orders’.

The UCO might occasionally be accused of acting along political lines. From El Plural here: ‘The UCO is silent after the Prosecutor's critical report on its investigation into the 'Montoro case'. The article says ‘A report from the Public Prosecutor's Office has been released criticizing the actions of the UCO agents for maintaining different speeds in different legal cases. Speed or slowness. Publicity or silence. Left or right…’

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Courts:

The written sentence against the last attorney general has now been released here. As to whether it shows that justice has been done – that depends on one’s politics.

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Media:

From The Financial Times here: ‘Maga’s strange rage against Europe. The cradle of western civilisation is wrongly accused of betraying it’. The piece reasonably asks: ‘Why not leave us to be irrelevant, slow-growing and the best place on Earth to live?’.

‘It's time to talk about noise, fury, mudslinging… About the systematic production of garbage within the framework of public discourse to delegitimize anyone who is inconvenient. It's the modern version of the most rancid authoritarianism. And it's the tactic being used today against journalists, opinion writers, politicians, and anyone with a public profile who causes trouble. The objectives are many: to silence criticism, instil fear, cancel dissenters, and even imprison the Prime Minister…’ Opinion from elDiario.es here.

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Ecology:

Following from the current swine-fever crisis in Catalonia, 20Minutos interviews a senior veterinarian under the title: "Wild boars are now a plague in Spain and their hunting should be encouraged."

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Various:

Euronews has: ‘More than one million descendants of Spanish exiles or emigrants have begun the process of applying for Spanish nationality through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' consular network, under the provisions of the Democratic Memory Law. In addition, another 1.3 million people have requested appointments to submit their documentation, although they have not yet been able to do so due to the administrative backlog…’

December 11th is the day when The British Cemetery in Málaga (usually, if erroneously, called ‘el Cementerio Inglés’), inaugurated in 1831, remembers its most famous resident, Robert Boyd. Málaga Hoy recalls some of those who lie in peace at the small graveyard including Boyd, the Northern Irish soldier who joined General Torrijos and his supporters in the unsuccessful revolt against Fernando VII. On capture, ‘The governor of Málaga at that time asked the king what should be done with them, since a Briton, Boyd, was among those detained. The king sent him a very short message: shoot them’. The execution was carried out on the beach on December 11th, 1831.
Many photographs of the annual homage to Robert Boyd are here.

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See Spain:

‘Cádiz: The oldest city in Europe is in Spain. It was founded by the Phoenicians 3,000 years ago. On a small peninsula off the coast of Andalucía, this city has witnessed countless cultures pass through its history’. From Viajar here, with photos.

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Finally:

Robe Iniesta, leader of Extremoduro and voice of Spanish rock, has died. Awarded the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts in 2024, he was one of the most outstanding musicians and lyricists in Spanish rock says El Mundo here. Here’s Robe with La Canción Más Triste.