Business over Tapas 616

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
January 22 2026 Nº 616

I'm not sure if they did table-service back then, I'll have to ask Haro's son Paco when I see him. 'Let's see, two gin and tonics, three wines, a beer and a Fanta Orange' (the last one being for me). I'm pretty sure though, that you had to walk up to the bar to place your order.

In those days, back in the late sixties, there wasn't much else to do for my parents and their friends beyond gossip and drink while seated around the rickety tables of the Hotel Indalo in the square. There was no TV, no newspapers and few interruptions beyond...

'Napia, gimme a duro', said a dishevelled local fellow called Arturo: the price of a brandy.

My dad would hand over the five-peseta coin and Arturo would gamely totter into the bar for his reward.

Oddly, the word Napia (my family name is Napier) would raise chuckles among the local folk. Everybody had a nickname (important when there are seventeen people called Paco working in the town hall) and napia is Spanish slang for a large nose. This by chance happened to be a feature of my father’s appearance, along with being very tall, red-headed, and covered with so many freckles that they always looked like they might one day decide to join together.

He was also known as El Langostino.

My parents had already decided to leave the UK and move to somewhere odd, when a family friend suggested Mojácar: a falling-down white village in the forgotten province of Almería with a view of the sea and just the one cheap hotel (60 pesetas a night). They arrived in the summer of 1966, just a few months after the bombs fell from the stricken USAF B-52 over the nearby village of Palomares.

I was locked away at boarding school and didn’t make it over to Spain until the following year.

A couple of the people regularly gathered around the tables on the terrace were something to do with the Americans – one of them was rumoured to be in the CIA and another had worked ‘for Uncle Sam’ installing a desalination plant over the site of one of the fallen bombs as a sop towards an outraged Franco (it was quickly dismantled after the Americans left, and sold for scrap). The chief engineer deciding to stay and open the village’s first beach bar.


There were a couple of London wide-boys, a few artists, some gays, an Olympic skier gone to seed, a dance instructress who had been in the French resistance, a Danish fellow with a handlebar moustache who spoke better English than Terry Thomas (who he strongly resembled), an air-vice marshal with a plummy accent, an American draft-dodger (Vietnam), two or three piednoirs (Franco didn’t allow work-permits, but French Algerians were excepted), and a revolving number of others who came and went as circumstances allowed.

If they all enjoyed a few jars, the odd libation, a nip or two, a gargle and a swally, the only sober one at these sessions would be me. I was thirteen when I first came to Mojácar, and I maybe smoked a bit – but I had no interest in booze, and the one time I tried I was sick all over my father.

Smoking though. Everybody smoked. It was so cheap back then – a packet cost between five and twelve pesetas (three to seven cents of a euro) with the only problem being that this was black tobacco, grown I think in Extremadura. Far rougher than Virginia.

Not an issue of course – everyone in those times smoked Ducados, Bonanza or Celtas.

Even Arturo, the moocher.

The hotelier’s son, about my age, grew up as one does and wrote a book a few years ago. It was a homage to those early foreigners who had stayed either in the hotel or slept in the foyer. He kindly called his tome: ‘Mojaqueros de Hecho’ (Francisco Haro Pérez) - The Made Mojaqueros.

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Housing:

From The Corner here: ‘Best November in history for home sales in Spain, with 58,546 transactions recorded, representing a year-on-year increase of 7.8%, according to data provided by the National Statistics Institute (INE). 21.8% of the homes sold in November were new and 78.2% were second-hand. Specifically, the number of transactions involving new homes increased by 4.1% compared to November 2024, with 12,742 transactions. Not so many had been sold in November since 2011. Meanwhile, used homes grew by 8.9%, to 45,804 transactions, the highest in a month of November in the series…’

From Spanish Property Insight here: ‘Spain has formally asked the European Union to allow limits on certain property purchases in the Canary Islands, reigniting a familiar debate over foreign demand, housing affordability, and market intervention. The government has proposed to the European Commission that it be authorised to restrict the purchase of homes in the Canary Islands when they are not intended for residential use. The stated aim is to ease pressure on prices and improve access to housing for young people and vulnerable groups. The backdrop is stark. Foreign buyers account for around 36% of all home purchases in the islands, while prices have risen by more than 50% over the past decade…’

Flat-sharing is becoming the new normal in Spain’s pressured housing market – but would you live with a total stranger asks The Olive Press here.

From El Huff Post here: ‘Rafael, the Spaniard who lives in an 8 m2 motorhome on the outskirts of Málaga: “It’s the only way I can save for my daughter”. Exorbitant rental prices have led many Spaniards to seek unthinkable alternatives, such as living in just a few square meters, to make ends meet’.

‘Young Spaniards are leaving expensive cities, fleeing record rents, buying houses in the countryside outright, repopulating nearly empty villages, raising children in nature, becoming neo-rural dwellers, exposing the urban housing crisis, and showing how a previously empty Spain is slowly beginning to change’, says Click Oil and Gas (Brasil).

From Levante EMV here: ‘21st Century slums: 150,000 families live without electricity, water, heating, or sewerage in the Levante. The Foessa report warns of the 410,000 people living in the Valencian Community in "inadequate housing" such as shacks, apartments without basic utilities, and overcrowded dwellings’.

Spanish Property Insight has ‘Home insurance in Spain has been getting steadily more expensive for years, but the latest figures suggest something sharper happened around 2024. For property owners already grappling with rising taxes, higher community fees and tougher rules on holiday lettings, insurance is becoming another cost quietly putting pressure on holiday-home budgets…’

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Tourism:

From The Majorca Daily Bulletin here: ‘British travellers to Spain will now not need the new ETIAS permit until 2027’. We read that ‘The EU’s European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) will be implemented, as planned, in the final months of 2026, but it will now be followed by a six-month transition period. As a result, the permit will not be mandatory until at least April 2027’.

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Finance:

‘President Sánchez announced last week details of a sovereign wealth fund to mobilize €120,000 million following the Next Generation EU program. The Spain Grows (España Crece) initiative will begin with a base of €10,500 million in national and international investment’. In what El Periódico describes as ‘…a Keynesian closing address at the Spain Investors Day conference, the Prime Minister outlined nine investment targets his government plans to prioritize: housing, energy, digitalization, artificial intelligence, reindustrialization, the circular economy, infrastructure, water and sanitation, and security…’

From El Economista here: ‘The IMF gives a boost to Spain's GDP, which is increasingly leaving Germany, France, and Italy behind. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has had to 'amend' its forecasts and revise Spain's growth upwards by 0.3 percentage points for 2026 to 2.3%, and by 0.2 percentage points for 2027 to 1.9%, compared to their previous October publication…’

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Politics:

From Cadena Ser here: ‘Feijóo lashes out at the migrant population: "I do say that there are too many people in Spain". The PP leader adopts the far-right's anti-immigration rhetoric’. The first meeting in ten months between President Sánchez and Feijóo was due to be held at La Moncloa (the presidential residence) on Monday but was postponed at the last moment due to the train-crash in Adamuz (Córdoba) on Sunday night. More on the accident here.

A terrible train crash on the Córdoba/Madrid AVE line. One train operated by IRYO was derailed on a straight run and, just a few seconds later, another high-speed train coming the other way ploughed into it on Sunday night causing 43 deaths. No one knows the cause, but, let’s keep it political: ‘The far right uses the Córdoba accident to attack the government. The Vox leader Santiago Abascal tweeted just hours after learning of the accident, stating that he cannot “trust” the actions of Pedro Sánchez’s government’. First, says someone, let’s find out what happened. On Tuesday, a second derailment occurred – this time a local train in Catalonia with one dead.

Levante EMV says ‘Ignacio Arsuaga, president of CitizenGo and Hazte Oír, at the end of the general election campaign held in April 2019, made statements to an undercover reporter posing as a potential contributor, in which he "described his plans to attack Vox's political rivals, and talked about how to circumvent the laws on campaign financing in Spain."’. The article then goes on to discuss the far-right Mexican-based El Yunque movement (and certain other fascist groups) and its presence in Vox, with the names of Vox politicians involved. El Salto Diario has more in a similar vein: ‘From the pulpit to the ballot box: the rise of the Evangelical church as a battleground for the far right. the Partido Popular in the Region of Murcia and the Community of Madrid has been cultivating relationships with neo-Pentecostal evangelical religious leaders for years, attempting to gain electoral advantage from this rapidly growing phenomenon. Vox, Hazte Oír, and the Opus Dei also participate in the global network that undermines the progressive agenda…’ We read over at Diario Socialista that there are ‘More than twice as many evangelical churches as mosques in Spain. The far right is outraged by the presence of 1,945 mosques while remaining silent about 4,763 evangelical churches’.

From Diario Socialista here: ‘Netanyahu invites Sílvia Orriols to Tel Aviv to consolidate alliances. The president of Aliança Catalana (a splinter Catalonian fascist group) could travel in February to meet with the genocidal leader and seek a "spectacular" photo opportunity to boost her international profile’.

The recent elections in Extremadura – where the PP won without an overall majority, and where Vox managed to grow considerably – meant that Vox wanted some major concessions before allowing the formation of a government there. El Mundo says that Vox won’t join the government, leaving the PP and its leader Maria Guardiola with a simple and uncertain majority. Nevertheless, says the report, discussions continue…

elDiario.es reports that ‘Castile and León will hold regional elections on March 15. The regional president, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, is completing his term, which was marked in its day by the first regional government pact between the PP and Vox parties’.

Reminder: Aragón holds its elections on February 8th. Issues between the PP and Vox in Extremadura are boiling over into the Aragón campaign says elDiario.es here.

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Europe:

From The Brussels Times here: ‘US tech giants allying with European far-right to strip back EU rules. Amid rising EU-US tensions, a new report has accused Big Tech of courting far-right MEPs to weaken the EU's regulatory power on AI and data’. It says that ‘Big Tech companies such as Google, Microsoft and Meta increased their meetings with far-right groups in the European Parliament ahead of the Commission's push last year…’

Al Jazeera says that ‘Russia is turning occupied Donbas into a huge military base to frighten Europe. As the Ukraine war drags, Moscow is transforming the economy of the occupied Donbas region, officials, residents and analysts say’.

Spain in English posts that ‘Several European leaders have sharply criticised US President Donald Trump after he threatened to impose punitive tariffs on European countries resisting his push to take control of Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory. While Spain itself is not immediately under threat from Trump’s new tariffs, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said that a US invasion of Greenland ‘would make Putin the happiest man on earth’ in an interview with La Vanguardia newspaper published on Sunday…’ From elDiario.es here: ‘The 27 EU countries respond to Trump: “We will defend ourselves against any form of coercion”’. From the BBC here: ‘Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said a trade war is in "no-one's interest" after Donald Trump threatened to impose a 10% tax on imports from the UK and other countries who oppose his plans to take control of Greenland’. Speaking at Davos, ‘Trump calls for ‘immediate negotiations’ on Greenland, but rules out using force’.

‘There's a Europe struggling to pay for housing and another that lives comfortably. And the map at Xataca here shows the differences. In which areas of the EU does paying for a house require the greatest financial effort? This map holds the key’.

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Corruption:

Ester Palomera writing at elDiario.es here: ‘The Two Speeds of Justice. Ayuso's partner will be tried after the 2027 regional elections. In this case, unlike those involving former minister Ábalos or Sánchez's brother, the judges are indeed adhering to the unwritten rule that their decisions should not influence political or partisan interests’.

‘The Anti-Drug Prosecutor's Office requests that the lawsuit against Zapatero be dismissed: "There is not the slightest evidence." The Public Prosecutor's Office also rejects the money laundering accusations’. ‘The Anti-Drug Department sees no evidence of drug trafficking or money laundering against the former president in the complaint filed by Hazte Oír’.

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Courts:

From Pandemia Digital (video) here: ‘We analyse the trial of Pilar Baselga for spreading the falsehood that Begoña Gómez was really “Begoño,” a transphobic lie imported from similar international campaigns against Michelle Obama and Brigitte Macron and amplified by the far-right media and digital outlets in Spain. We dismantle how this falsehood was part of an organized disinformation strategy, with serious accusations such as drug trafficking and espionage, and we point to the responsibility of the media outlets and platforms that gave it a platform, many of them funded with public money’.

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Media:

‘A well-known computer expert has uncovered the contracts awarded by the Ayuso government to right-wing and far-right media outlets, one by one: see the full list here’.

RTVE finds plenty of rumours, fake news and misinformation about the train accident in Adamuz, Córdoba.

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Ecology:

An interesting article from The Guardian about an experimental citrus plantation in Valencia: ‘A Garden of Eden: the Spanish farm growing citrus you’ve never heard of. The Todolí foundation produces varieties from Buddha’s hands to sudachi and hopes to help citrus survive climate change’.

From elDiario.es: ‘Jail time for scrapyard owners for polluting the equivalent of 30,000 flights between Madrid and New York. The Provincial Court of Madrid has handed down sentences of up to four years in prison to the manager and three employees of a scrapyard in San Martín de la Vega, finding that they failed to properly remove fluorinated gas from hundreds of cars stored on their property’.

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Various:

A kind of Spanish flying drone-carrier, Defensa y Seguridad introduces ‘the "air frigate": the A321XLR, which will revolutionize electronic warfare with drones and 5th generation sensors’.

‘Spain’s meteorologists subjected to ‘alarming’ rise in hate speech, minister warns. The environment minister says attacks on social media affect perceptions of meteorology and denigrate researchers’ work’. The item comes from The Guardian here.

Palomares (Almería) was in the news this week, as they remembered the B-52 nuclear accident over their heads on January 16th 1966.

Less remembered, says 20Minutos, is Cliff Richards and The Shadows whose film 'Finders Keepers' was based around the tragedy. 'The plot: Cliff and The Shadows travel to a Spanish town for a gig. When they arrive, they are puzzled to find the area empty. They find out that a small bomb has accidentally been dropped on the town and the villagers have fled in panic that it will go off. The boys decide to find the bomb and restore peace in the village, with some musical numbers along the way' (Wiki).

Here's a song about the washerwomen (not, I think, filmed in downtown Palomares).

‘The US plan to invade the Canary Islands in 1898 and why Tenerife was targeted. The islands occupied a key position on the maritime routes between Europe, Africa, and America, something that was especially valuable’. El Español has the story (in the hope that Trump doesn’t hear about it).

From Eye on Spain here: ‘The Spanish professors who "invented" the Gregorian calendar and forever changed the way of measuring time’.

‘The Prado cannot be like the Metro at rush hour’, says the Madrid museum’s chief. A record 3.5 million visited in 2025 and plans are afoot to ensure the gallery does not become overburdened like the Louvre in Paris says The Guardian here.

Maeve Binchy travelled by train across Spain in 1976. Here’s her article – The Track of Adventure – from The Irish Times.

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See Spain:

‘Madrid. Not a particularly pretty city, Hemingway wrote in Death in the Afternoon. It’s sometimes as if its grandiose buildings could be anywhere, Buenos Aires, for example. But it’s when one sees that deep blue, high-desert winter sky and the snow dusting the jagged peaks of the Sierra de Guadarrama as they loom above the city that one realizes it can’t be anywhere else but Madrid… GuiriGuru has ‘Madrid Winter Road-trip (El Escorial, Toledo, Segovia & Aranjuez)’.

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Finally:

Afrika Bibang, the first black artist to sing in Euskera, is interviewed here. Afrika performs Topic on YouTube here.