Live News From Spain As It Happens

JUST two weeks after socialist president Pedro Sánchez was sworn in for a fresh term, his deputy Yolanda Díaz has expressed a desire to increase the minimum wage in Spain.

Head of the socialist (PSOE) government's left-wing coalition partners, Sumar, Sra Díaz reasoned that the lowest legal salary payable to workers should rise by a figure above the level of inflation, so that employees could 'regain the spending power they have lost' since prices began to spiral.

This means the minimum wage would have to rise by around 3.7% to 3.8%, or approximately €560 a year before tax.

This announcement was made during a conference on achieving equality among women in Spain's gypsy,or gitana community – a long-established and settled group that shares roots with the Roma ethnicity.

“There's no better tool for equality than to raise the minimum wage,” Sra Díaz stated, “and there's no better feminist, anti-poverty or anti-job insecurity policy than this.”

She intends to call meetings with trade unions and representatives from the business community to discuss the matter 'immediately', in order to deal with the current 'unprecedented inflation crisis'.

How the minimum wage works out

Yolanda Díaz's proposal would mean the lowest earners receiving €1,120 per month before tax, based upon 14 monthly salaries – a double pay packet in August and December.

As the 14-month system is rare nowadays outside the public sector, this would mean 12 monthly salaries every year of about €1,156.30 after tax, or a gross annual wage of €15,680.

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SPAIN is open to relaxing the so-called '90-day rule' for British visitors and holiday-home owners – although its national government is not sure it will have the powers to take any action.

Minister for industry, tourism and trade, Héctor Gómez, and Secretary of State for tourism, Rosana Morillo, were recently at London's World Travel Market – one of the biggest holiday trade fairs on earth, and the UK capital's answer to Madrid's famous FITUR exhibition.

Whilst there, Gómez recalled that the UK is Spain's largest foreign tourist market, and said that all the signs pointed to its continuing to be so in 2024.

Spain, along with other key holiday countries in Europe popular with British nationals, feared Brexit would create a negative impact on their tourism industry, but Gómez and Sra Morillo confirm this has not been the case for the Spanish sector.

Still, Brexit has caused huge challenges for people in Britain who own holiday homes in EU nations, particularly those who have always spent significant amounts of their year in them, or who have family in EU countries they may need long-term 'access' to at any given point.

What is the '90/180' rule?

This is because, with the UK's departure from the EU, the nation became subject to third-country Schengen zone rules: Its residents are limited to 90 consecutive days within the European passport-free area in any 180 days.

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SPAIN will be one of the fastest-growing member States in the European Union between now and the year 2025, but will 'almost certainly' fail to meet the fiscal requirements established in the bloc in 2024, and is no longer the major economy with the lowest inflation.

This is the latest economic diagnosis from the European Commission in Brussels, which forecasts a gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 2.4% by the end of 2023, largely triggered by consumer spending.

Next year will see growth fall to 1.7%, but it will pick up by 2025, reaching 2%.

Spain is one of the top four largest economies in the EU, along with Germany, France and Italy – but Spain is the only one which will experience growth of over 1.5% in the next two years.

In fact, Germany could even see a minor shrinking in its economy before the end of 2023, the Commission reports.

Eurozone inflation: Huge fluctuations, but not in Spain

Until this month, Spain had the lowest inflation of all the biggest economies in the EU, at under 3%, but has now lost its crown – prices have gone up again for the first time in over a year, leaving inflation in the country at 3.5%.

The cost of groceries – food and non-alcoholic drinks – is largely to blame, showing 9.4% inflation in Spain; down from its 10.5% in September, but still well above the current average of 7.5% in the Eurozone.

One of the member States where food prices have risen the most – only Greece has higher food inflation, at 10.4% - Spain has shown a different trend in the past few weeks from the rest of the bloc.

In the single-currency zone, inflation has been slowly falling, reaching a year-on-year 2.9% in October.

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NEWLY sworn-in national president Pedro Sánchez is now starting the challenging task of building his cabinet among a very divided coalition, although several names from his previous tenure are tipped to be returning to their rôles.

The socialist (PSOE) leader, who has been in power since 2018, looked set to regret his gamble of bringing forward the 2023 general elections from November to July when the party's key opposition team – the right-wing PP – gained the most votes.

But with no party holding an outright majority, a coalition would be required – and only one feasible partner for the PP, being the far-right Vox, did not hold enough seats to make up the numbers.

Sánchez would have the support of the leftist party Sumar, a coalition of Podemos breakaway groups and Podemos itself – made up of the Catalunya-based branch of the latter, En Comú Podem, the satellite groups in the capital, Más Madrid and Más País, and the regional party in Valencia, Compromís.

Set up by Sánchez's then deputy president Yolanda Díaz, who took over after Podemos' founder Pablo Iglesias quit politics, Sumar is said to be likely to hold four to five ministerial leadership positions, but the original Podemos figureheads may not end up with any key rôles.

Also, in order to amass enough votes to be sworn in as president in his final investiture ceremony on Thursday, November 16, Sánchez needed to gain the support of various regional parties, including those in Catalunya who are in favour of the north-eastern territory's bid to become an independent country.

Sánchez negotiates with Catalunya's pro-independence politicians 

This secession movement is outlawed by the Spanish Constitution, and an attempt to hold an illegal referendum on October 1, 2017 led to a number of Catalunya politicians fleeing the country to avoid arrest.

Having gained promises of votes in favour from the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), Sumar, and the Catalunya Left Republicans (ERC), Sánchez sought to strike a deal with Junts per Catalunya (JxCat), formerly led by exiled regional president Carles Puigdemont.

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BRUCE'The Boss' Springsteen and The E-Street Band are heading to Spain next spring, and tickets have gone on sale today (Tuesday).

Promoters Doctor Music have announced that the legendary rocker will be on stage at Madrid's Civitatis Metropolitan Stadium on June 12 and 14 – two nights – and then at Barcelona's Olympic Stadium on June 20.

The three shows mark a full circle for the New Jersey-born singer, songwriter and guitarist, since he opened his current European tour with a two-night concert in Barcelona in spring this year.

This year's leg of the tour has so far sold 1.6 million tickets, and taken in venues such as London's Hyde Park and the closing gig in Monza, Italy, which brought in over 70,000 fans.

Having given 60 concerts since February, Springsteen had to postpone his scheduled shows in the USA and Canada in September due to a peptic ulcer, but is now confirmed to be fully fit and raring to go.

Having barely finished his 2023 European tour, Bruce, 74, will kick off another on May 5 next year in Cardiff, Wales – the first of 22 shows that will firstly take in Belfast, Northern Ireland; Kilkenny, Cork and Dublin (Ireland), Sunderland (England, UK), Marseille (France), Prague (Czechia), Milan (Italy), then Spain's two largest cities.

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HOLIDAYMAKERS from abroad visiting Spain this year are spending more money than ever, and visitor numbers have soared since last year, according to recent figures from the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

Between January and September 2023 inclusive, a total of 66.5 million people resident abroad travelled to Spain – about one-and-a-half times the year-round population, and the equivalent of the entire headcount of the UK.

Although this represents a reduction of 0.6% on 2019 – the last year before the pandemic and still Spain's record season – foreign tourists were much more numerous than during the same nine-month period in 2022.

Year on year, a total of 18.8% more visitors from abroad came to Spain in 2023, the INE reveals.

And although numbers are slightly lower than pre-pandemic, the amount tourists spend when they travel to Spain has increased by 15.1%.

Based upon the first nine months of 2022, this represents a rise of 24% - foreign holidaymakers have brought in nearly €84.7 billion in 2023, and the year is not even over yet.

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