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As the tourism season heats up, angry Spaniards in Málaga, priced out of the housing market, have taken to daubing streets and doors with slogans and stickers ranging from the mild Antes esta era mi casa ('This used to be my home') to the more brutal A tu p*ta casa ('F*ck off home'). In Tenerife, […]
La entrada Overtourism: is Spain's sector a victim of its own success? se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

Little did they know it, but the military captains who overthrew Portugal's decades-long dictatorship 50 years ago this week ushered in a wave of democratisation around the world, including Spain, after the death of General Franco in 1975, but in very different circumstances. Portugal's dictatorship was the oldest in Europe, totalling 48 years since a […]
La entrada Fiftieth anniversary of Portugal's revolution, not to be confused with Spain's transition to democracy se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

Tractors driven by angry farmers have inundated Madrid and other cities as part of protests in other countries, including France, the EU's largest agricultural producer, Greece, Germany, Poland and Portugal, against conditions that are eroding their livelihoods. Farmers are suffering to varying degrees from falling prices (the average price of products they receive was 9% […]
La entrada Spanish farmers at the forefront of EU-wide protests se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

The average age at which young people in Spain leave the parental home and live independently is 30.3 years, four more than the EU average and the highest age of emancipation in the past 20 years (see Figure 1). More than 80% of the population aged between 16 and 29 live at home compared with […]
La entrada The plight of young adults seeking to leave the parental home se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

The number of people in employment last year reached a record high, but Spain's jobless rate is still almost double the EU average. There were a record 21.26 million jobholders at the end of September, according to INE's quarterly survey, 1.3 million more than at the end of 2019, before Spain's first case of the […]
La entrada A record year for jobs and better quality ones se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

Spain has another Socialist-led minority coalition government, 17 weeks after the snap and inconclusive elections on 23 July, and one that continues to rely for parliamentary support on Basque and Catalan separatists and other parties. It took office at a time when public trust in the country's political parties was worryingly low and the quality […]
La entrada Challenging Times for Spain se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

First the bad news. Spain's mean performance for science, mathematics and reading in the OECD's PISA tests for 15-year-olds in 2022 was the worst since the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment was launched in 2000. And now the relative good news. As a result of the unprecedented drop in most countries' results, largely because […]
La entrada Mixed education results in PISA international tests se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

The OECD's latest economic survey of Spain coincides with the Socialist-led minority government winning parliamentary support for a third term, four months after July's inconclusive snap election, with the hard-left Sumar as its junior partner again and backing from Catalan and Basque separatist parties. These surveys, produced every two years or so by the Paris-based […]
La entrada The OECD’s recipes for the Spanish economy se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

Six years ago this month, after organising an unlawful and failed referendum on independence for Catalonia followed by a unilateral declaration of secession, Carles Puigdemont, the region's Premier, hid in the boot of a car and fled to self-imposed exile in Belgium. Since July's inconclusive general election, Puigdemont, a fugitive from justice, holds the key […]
La entrada The government's controversial amnesty in order to remain in power se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

Two months after July's snap and inconclusive general election, there are no signs of a new government. The Popular Party (PP), which won the most seats in parliament (137 out of 350), will have the first stab on 27 September when an absolute majority is required at the first investiture vote and a simple majority […]
La entrada In search of a government se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

A recent cartoon in El País by El Roto titled 'Young lovers contemplating the moon' showed a couple holding hands and looking up at a house in the sky, perfectly capturing one of the most pressing problems facing Spaniards under the age of 30. Getting on the property ladder is far from being an exclusively […]
La entrada Young adults and pensioners: too deep a divide se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

'To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle' George Orwell, Tribune, 22/III/1946 Spain's 1936-39 Civil War had a profound impact on George Orwell's writing and life, as a new biography of him shows. But for Orwell's experience, particularly the hunting down and silencing of Communist dissidents by the Stalinist party […]
La entrada How Spain's Civil War defined George Orwell politically se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

The ruling Socialists' defeat in May's local and regional elections triggered a snap general election on 23 July and raised the prospect of significant change in the political landscape. Swathes of the country turned blue at the end of last month. The centre-right Popular Party (PP) of Alberto Feijóo, who became the party's leader only […]
La entrada What May's local and regional elections tell us about politics in Spain ahead of July's snap general election se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

Spain is suffering a prolonged drought, sparking water rationing in some parts of the country because of depleted reservoirs, causing the wildfire season to start months earlier than usual and destroying crops or farmers deciding not to plant them, which could push up food inflation (13% in April).  April was abnormally hot. The state meteorological […]
La entrada Spain prays for rain on the plain se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

Eighteen ninety-eight, a year known by Spaniards as the 'Disaster' because of the loss of the country's last colonies of its once vast empire –Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico– to the US in the Spanish-American war, is a good point at which to begin a history of modern Spain. The defeat galvanised the educated […]
La entrada The long and winding path to Spain's modernisation se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.