Business over Tapas 617

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 29 2026 Nº 617

Editorial:
There are seventeen autonomous regions in Spain (plus the two ‘autonomous cities’ of Melilla and Ceuta). Some of these regions are large: Andalucía comprises eight provinces and Castilla y León has nine, and others are small – such as Madrid, La Rioja, Murcia plus another four, which are all uni-provincial.
Each region has its own government and president.
Right now, we are in election mode in some of the autonomies (every four years unless called before). Extremadura with two provinces just had theirs in December – although the problem in the capital, Mérida, arises with the third party in number of votes, Vox, insisting on various functions within the minority government of María Guadiola (PP) in exchange for their support.
The final outcome remains unclear – and Extremadura could soon be called to the polls again.
Aragón is controlled by the PP and is currently in campaign mode for February 8th. It looks like Jorge Azcón will be returned, but as above, will need the support of a revitalised Vox. The Vox candidate Alejando Nolasco is a little extreme, describing the regional PP as ‘pro Islam’, according to one of the local news-sites.
Meanwhile, the candidacy of a PSOE government minister, Pilar Alegría, probably won’t be of much help for the party’s chances. The far-left once again refuses to join together (a bit like the Life of Brian’s joke of the antipathy between the People’s Front of Judea and the Judean People’s Front). Thus: IU and Sumar on the one hand, la Chunta Aragonesista on the other and Podemos bringing up the rear.
Aragón is three provinces, with its capital in Zaragoza.
The next up – for March 15th – is another PP stronghold, with Alfonso Fernández Mañueco (PP) holding the keys to Castilla y León. His problem might be the disastrous summer fires throughout the region, badly mismanaged by Mañueco and his team. Nevertheless, he will likely win say the experts (with the support or otherwise of Vox). The capital of this, the largest region of Spain with nine provinces (although the three western provinces of León, Salamanca and Zamora all want to leave) is Valladolid.
Finally, we come to Andalucía – yet again held by the PP. The president is Juanma Moreno and is seen as one of the two leading candidates (along with Madrid’s Ayuso) to take over the party nationally when Feijóo throws in the towel. The PSOE candidate is the heavyweight María Jesus Montero, the current Minister for Hacienda and vice-president of Spain. The date is sometime in June.
There could be the chance of an early surprise general election on the same day as the Andalusian ballot – depending on events and Pedro Sánchez.
And Valencia? Despite the departure of Carlos Mazón, the region can legally continue with the current government if they so wish until late May 2027.
In all these upcoming elections – as indeed elsewhere – the key to the throne-room appears to be in the hands of Santiago Abascal’s Vox party. In an uncomfortable alliance with the PP (which must make allowances and exceptions), Spain is approaching a difficult time.

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Housing:

From Idealista here: ‘Record prices and rising demand: foreigners are still driving Spanish real estate. Foreign buyers remained a key force in Spain’s property market in 2025, despite the end of ‘golden visas’, record prices, and government proposals to raise taxes on foreign purchases’.

Energy issues from El Mundo here: ‘The grid bottleneck – the structural deficit that Spain suffers – raises the number of new homes at risk in Spain to 350,000: "We can't even start construction." Half of the requests to connect urban development projects are rejected due to lack of capacity, delaying the construction of new developments by up to five years’.

The Olive Press is at its best with its investigative journalism. ‘British expats among hundreds facing eviction to make way for a mass-tourism complex on the Costa del Sol’. The 150-hectare site of Vega de Maro near Nerja on the Costa del Sol has become a battleground between environmental protection and ‘corporate greed’, with concerns centred on water use, food security and the loss of long-standing rural livelihoods.

‘Begoña lives in an apartment with thirteen people and has a pension of €800: “I pay €600 for a room and share a bathroom.” Suffering from cancer and unable to work, Begoña Revuelta has found herself in the situation of renting a room and sharing an apartment with twelve other people’. The story is at El Español here.

El Huff Post tells the story of a fellow who goes to look at a 40m2 apartment for sale. His mother (an architect) takes a look as well and discovers that the flat is in reality under 25m2. Ah, says the owner, but it is measured from outside the walls, and it includes storage space in the basement and a garage space a few streets away: forty square metres!

20Minutos writes ‘From the outskirts to the streets of Madrid: shantytowns are resurging with settlements in the heart of the capital's urban area’. Some depressing photos.

El Confidencial takes us to a hamlet in Huescar (Granada) called Galera where, we read, ‘In this Andalusian village, one in three residents is a foreigner, and they want more.
Galera has only 1,139 inhabitants, and 33% of them are foreigners, from 32 different nationalities. The authorities are doing everything they can to attract more immigrants’. Intriguingly, Galera is full of cave houses.

In Spain, there are 8,132 municipalities. Some of them of course hold more than one village or town, indeed – no one seems sure as to the total number of settlements (maybe as many as 17,000 says Google). From Fronteras, here’s an essay on the subject: ‘In Spain, there isn't a single square centimetre of land that doesn't belong to a municipality. In fact, the Spanish territorial organization is based on municipalities: It was in 1833 that Javier de Burgos assigned each municipality to a specific province based on its distance from the capital, with the idea that no place should be more than a day's journey from its provincial capital. The territory of a municipality can encompass a single population centre or several (generally the latter), and, except in highly urbanized areas, it always includes some rural land—that is, undeveloped land…’ Today, says the article, we look at some of the oddities.

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Tourism:

The word from Fitur: ‘Tourism is becoming less seasonal: foreign arrivals are growing more in the off-season than in summer. One in four tourists who visited Spain in 2015 did so in the summer, while last year that figure approached one in five’. Item at El Periódico here.

From Spain in English here: ‘Spain tourism hits new high in 2025: 97 million foreign visitors, spending €135,000 million’.

La Razón has "Spain's challenge is not how many tourists we receive, but how, where, and when." An interview with Daniel Martínez, Executive Vice President of Ifema Madrid (Fitur). Or rather, to cut to the chase: how much do they spend?

The Paradores de Turismo (Parador hotels) are an exclusive network of state-owned hotels in Spain (plus one in Portugal) located in historic buildings such as castles, palaces, monasteries, or unique natural settings. There are about 100 of them all told. 20Minutos tells us of a new one for Ibiza to be open to the public from March. We read: ‘The Parador de Ibiza will be the first to open in the Balearic Islands, and its opening will also make it one of the great jewels of the Parador network in Spain. This establishment will be a new tourist and heritage landmark for the island with the clear aim of fostering interest in Ibiza and attracting cultural tourism that respects the environment and historical legacy’.

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Finance:

Europa Press reports that ‘Spain will be the second fastest-growing developed economy in 2026, second only to the United States, with growth once again exceeding the Eurozone average, according to forecasts from some of the leading international organizations’.

‘Unemployment falls below 10% and employment ends 2025 with more than 22 million workers. The Spanish labour market closes out the past year with a new record’. El Plural has the story here.

From La Cope here: the pension-system has a huge deficit says the Bishops’ radio. ‘According to FEDEA (the Foundation for Applied Economic Studies) the real deficit in the pension system reached almost €70,000 million in 2025. This figure contrasts sharply with official government data, which places the shortfall at just €10,000 million. The €60,000 million (sixty billion) difference lies in the fact that FEDEA does not include the transfers that Social Security receives from the State to cover expenses, thus revealing the "real hole" in a system that is "completely in deficit."
This imbalance persists despite the strong performance of the labour market, which added one million more contributors in 2025, and the 7% increase in contribution revenue compared to 2024. These figures are insufficient to curb rising spending. As the experts summarize, "pensions could not be paid right now without the help of taxes or public debt"’.

Tuesday: ‘Congress rejects the pensions increase (in a larger bill) for 2026: what will happen now? January's pension amounts include the revaluation, but February's could revert to 2025 levels’. Junts voted with Vox, the UPN and the Partido Popular against the rise in pensions for 2026, inconveniencing some nine and a half million pensioners. The story is at El Huff Post here. The Government says it is working on a possible formula to rectify the pension issue.

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Politics:

The authorities are still trying to discover the cause of the two-train collision last week in Adamuz, Córdoba. The Minister of Transport complains of (political) bulos at EFE here: ‘The Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, asserted this Sunday that the broken rail where the Iryo train derailed in Adamuz is a brand-new rail. In a message on Twitter, Puente stated that the article published on the front page of the newspaper El Mundo this Sunday is "a complete fabrication"’. There are however concerns about the state of the railways following some other recent derailments and other accidents (and one death in Catalonia). Óscar Puente said on Monday: “Whoever must be sacked, then let it be so. And if that's me, then so be it.” The headline at Público here: ‘Feijóo demands Puente's resignation because the government "has bombarded us with data," and the mockery is epic: "Resignation due to information overload. First time I've heard that"’.
Later, two senior officials from the Catalonian region were fired following further chaos with the local service.
The high-speed line between Madrid and Andalucía will re-open on February 7th.

‘There's no better way to unite a country than by strengthening the welfare state. What the conservatives want is to profit from healthcare, education, and social services. That's why we must vote for the PSOE, for the rights of ordinary people’. Pedro Sánchez was on the campaign trail in Áragon on Sunday.

20Minutos says that ‘Former minister José Luis Ábalos submitted his resignation as a member of parliament on Wednesday’. He thus loses his aforamiento (immunity) and this opens him to interrogation by the judge over the Koldo Case. At the same time, a new member of congress (and an extra vote) for the PSOE arrives. Ábalos is currently being held in prison on corruption charges.

(From the elDiario.es newsletter): ‘The government and Podemos have reached an agreement. That in itself is news, given the current situation, but what is truly important is the profound impact of this pact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Spain: on Tuesday, the Council of Ministers begins processing an extraordinary regularization of immigrants. This means that all undocumented immigrants who have been in Spain for more than six months and can prove it with a medical report, a utility bill, or a certificate of registration, will automatically receive a residence permit, and any expulsion or deportation orders against them will be dropped. Nothing like this has been seen since 2005…’ Both the PP and the PSOE have regularized immigrants in the past. José Maria Aznar for example with over 400,000 back in 2001 and 2002. (No, non-citizens can’t vote in regional or national elections.)

ABC has ‘Vox remains loyal to Trump even though his latest measures create problems for their narrative. Their support for the US leader forces Abascal's party to navigate between international loyalty and their national discourse’.

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Europe:

La Cadena Ser has: ‘Speaking last week following a meeting of political leaders at the European Council, Sánchez announces that Spain will not participate in the Gaza Peace Council proposed by Trump. The Prime Minister also criticized Trump's stance on Greenland, argued that Europe must take "the necessary measures to protect itself against any threat," and asserted that the US "is not respecting international law" and is "straining relations between the US and the EU like never before."

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Health:

From Nueva Tribuna here: ‘The collapse of hospital emergency departments and the introduction of the American healthcare model in Spain’. There is a perfectly designed strategy by right-wing parties with the support of multinationals, investment funds, pharmaceutical laboratories and the technology industry, to transfer to our country the health model of the United States in which the population with fewer resources (which is the majority) goes to saturated emergency rooms of public hospitals to receive basic assistance (and is immediately sent out into the street), while those who have a good economic situation take out private insurance.

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Corruption:

‘Expat shock as vanished funeral firm found to have ‘no funds left’ in accounts’. Readers may remember the sudden disappearance of Iberian Funeral Plans. The Olive Press has the story here. ‘The company, which vanished overnight on March 3 last year, left expats with no access to their plans which each cost over €3,000 (and as much as €7,500)…’

Hackers seem to get into everything these days… ‘A massive hack has affected the presidents and councillors of fifteen autonomous communities, impacting all political parties except Vox. The most frequently leaked data are mobile phone and national identity card numbers, although this may differ from the published information on the politicians affected, which also includes home addresses, license plate numbers, vehicle make and colour, bank accounts, and even utility details’. Details are at El Economista here.

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Ecology:

‘An engineer invents powdered water to combat drought. A Mexican engineer devised a technology a few years ago capable of retaining rainwater and transforming it into a solid gel that keeps roots hydrated for weeks. His goal: to save up to 90% of water in agriculture. Spain has recently faced a particularly difficult situation due to a lack of rainfall. With the countryside relying on the skies and reservoirs at critically low levels in many areas, any advancement that helped to make better use of water became a vital asset, especially in rural areas and agriculture. In this context, a striking and promising proposal emerged: so-called powdered water, a technology that allows rainwater to be stored in the soil and released gradually as needed by the plants…’ Found at Jara y Sedal here.

From The European Geosciences Union here: ‘A five-century tree-ring record from Spain reveals recent intensification of western Mediterranean precipitation extremes’.

‘Europe’s supermarket shelves packed with ‘misleading’ claims about recycled plastic packaging’, says The Guardian here, adding: ‘Europe’s supermarket shelves are packed with brands billing their plastic packaging as sustainable, but often only a fraction of the materials are truly recovered from waste, with the rest made from petroleum. Brands using plastic packaging – from Kraft’s Heinz Beanz to Mondelēz’s Philadelphia – use materials made by the plastic manufacturing arm of the oil company Saudi Aramco. The Saudi state-owned holding opposes production cuts under the UN plastic treaty and is the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitter (more than 70m tonnes up to 2023)…’

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Various:

I imagine that many restaurants prepare their meals beforehand and keep them in the fridge waiting for a hungry customer. It’s also said that some package hotels use ‘catering’ – food prepared elsewhere in an ‘industrial cuisine’ and sent in bulk as required. Público says that, actually… ‘More and more restaurants aren't preparing your meal in-house: this is trucked-in cuisine. The Confederation of Consumers and Users maintains that restaurants should be required to inform their customers when the dishes they serve are not prepared on the premises’.

Idealista tells you how to get on the padrón. ‘If you’re planning to move to Spain, there’s a key step that should be at the top of your checklist: registering for your empadronamiento, often referred to simply as the padrón. This registration is essential for living legally in Spain and accessing many public services’.

Tráfico has confirmed that users of personal mobility vehicles (VMPs in Spanish) will have to register their electric scooters on the DGT's website if they want to ride legally. The DGT had hoped to have this measure ready by the start of the new year, but it is only now that the Council of Ministers have given it the green light. The next step will be insuring them…

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See Spain:

‘The Palacio de Sobrellano in Comillas (Cantabria): the peculiar palace that was built to impress the European nobility: neo-Gothic, from the 19th century and with a unique design.
The work of the Catalan architect Joan Martorell, it was the first building in all of Spain to have electric light’. Viajar has the story (and video) here.

From Eye on Spain here: ‘Our vineyard visit at Bodegas Ramos-Paul - A hidden treasure in the Serranía de Ronda’.

Soria is one of those places which no one (or at least, me) goes to visit. El Confidencial brings us an item about Monteagudo de las Vicarías: ‘In the southeast of the province of Soria, in a territory historically marked by its borderland status, stands a town that surprises visitors with its striking silhouette and the preservation of an unusual medieval legacy. Perched atop a rocky spur and protected for centuries by walls, this ancient town maintains the strategic atmosphere that defined its past. Visitors encounter a site where the defensive architecture and the organization of the urban space reflect the importance of controlling this key area between Castilla and Aragón…’

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Finally:

Malagueña, a song performed by Inti Illimani (historical) at their concert in the National Stadium of Chile in 2004. This song is based on the Mexican son huasteco "La Malagueña Salerosa," attributed to the Mexican composers Pedro Galindo in collaboration with Elpidio Ramírez Burgos. Son huasteco originated as a fusion of traditional Native American music, 17th-century Hispanic poetry, and Spanish music from subsequent centuries.