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Financial inclusion guarantees people access to an appropriate level of financial services. The considerable decline in the number of bank branches in Spain in recent years has increased the risk of financial exclusion for some customers in rural areas. These customers tend to prefer a physical bank branch and specialised offers, especially in the business segment. Within this context, the role played by rural bank branches is twofold: they allow the banking sector to specialised offers in economic sectors critical to large parts of the region, such as agriculture, whilst also maintaining a commitment to financial inclusion.

More and more people are renting their home. In the past 5 years, the percentage of households renting their main home has increased significantly: from 16.1% in 2013 to 17.8% in 2018. This strong demand for rental property has pushed up prices, especially in large cities and tourist resorts, although in the past few quarters there has been a slight moderation. With a view to the future, the demand for rented accommodation is expected to remain strong and, to avoid more pressure on prices, supply will have to grow in line with this demand.

Active training policies, as well as the ability to attract talent in sectors with the greatest shortage of skilled personnel, will be key if the EU is to make progress in innovation and competitiveness and avoid falling behind its main competitors.

This year’s return to fiscal rules – as safeguards of the sustainability of public debt – and the persistent shortfall in investment needed to address the EU’s priorities in the current geopolitical context create a scenario marked by frictions that requires a coordinated fiscal strategy that far exceeds the horizon of national and EU political mandates, both in duration and ambition. Therefore, it is essential that the differences that exist, as well as some taboos that have characterised the EU’s economic history on other occasions, are overcome.

What has triggered the sharp rise in energy prices in Europe in the second half of 2021? Will the rally persist in the medium and long term?

After almost two years raising interest rates, in 2023 the major central banks reached the peak and adjusted their strategy: instead of raising official rates further, the monetary tightening was going to be implemented by keeping rates at that peak for longer. However, by the autumn the financial markets were already questioning this narrative. Why?

In 2021, supply problems have dominated the financial headlines. One of the most prominent problems has been the lack of chips, or semiconductors, which has caused many headaches across a range of sectors, including the automotive industry that is so key to European industry. In the face of increased structural demand for technological goods, is the supply ready for it?

Undoubtedly, the negotiation of the next budget will once again test the health of the European project, on which our strategic autonomy needed to address the geopolitical challenges that will continue to come from abroad will depend.

The outbreak of the pandemic in 2020, and more recently the war in Ukraine, has accelerated the trend of decoupling between the US and China, and Europe also appears to have joined in, albeit somewhat timidly for now. We analyse the EU’s dependence on China in order to understand whether European strategic autonomy is possible, or even desirable.

One of the big questions of the moment is whether the current rise in prices will spread to wages. To answer it, we analyse current wage dynamics in the euro area and what path they might follow in the future.

In this first article in a series of two, we review the recent trends in capital investment in Spain and make a comparison with the rest of the euro area. In a second article in this same Monthly Report, we investigate the incentives for investing, based on an analysis of the evolution of profitability and the cost of financing, sector by sector.