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What is expected in 2022 in terms of sustainable investments? We gauge the importance of environmental sustainability in the European NGEU funds as part of the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism.

In 2024, Spain reduced its exports to the European Union and the United States, so it had to seek out opportunities in new markets in order to diversify and strengthen its trade relations. These new markets primarily included countries in ASEAN, Latin America and the Caribbean Islands, as well as Oceania.

The energy crisis has served as an incentive within the EU to accelerate the transition to energy sources that are more environmentally friendly and less dependent on fossil fuels, but this is seen as more of a medium-term goal.

In this article, we analyse the latest data on the savings rate of Spanish households, which remains high, and the structural and economic factors that explain its evolution. This helps us to understand what its trajectory might be in the coming years.

Looking ahead to 2026, geopolitics will continue to play a fundamental role, bearing in mind the reordering of the globalisation process in which the international economy has been immersed since the pandemic. Furthermore, the economy will continue to be exposed to the combination of new underlying trends (restrictions on trade and migration movements, AI boom, etc.) and short-term challenges (limited fiscal space, high valuations in financial markets, etc.).

In this article we investigate how the ups and downs of our main trading partners’ economies can affect the Spanish economy through the trade channel. To this end, we developed a synthetic indicator that summarises the foreign demand for Spanish goods and services, and below we assess its predictive capacity and analyse the expected trends in the short and medium term.

In this article we analyse key aspects of Spain’s public finances, such as the duration of its public debt and the sensitivity of the risk premium to other economies, in order to assess the extent to which the challenging global environment and the fiscal risks in the rest of Europe can impact us.

The Spanish economy continues to stand out for its dynamism. In addition, behind the strength of the main indicators, there are several factors that point to the consolidation of a solid expansion cycle, which also helps us to understand the confidence that households, businesses and investors are showing.

In this article, we analyse the factors behind the recent evolution of Spain’s household savings rate and the outlook for 2026, in a context marked by the conflict in the Middle East, which could lead to higher inflation and potential interest rate hikes.

We analyse the price and cost competitiveness of export sales, as well as Spain’s current share of exports in a global scenario marked by rising trade tensions where the margins for competition appear to be narrowing.

The war in the Middle East could generate a new shock to the global economy that would also affect the Spanish economy. In this article, we analyse the three main channels through which it could do so: the first is inflation, through the rising cost of energy, other products originating from the Persian Gulf, and increased maritime transport costs; the second is external demand, if the conflict hampers the growth of our trading partners; and the third is the financial channel, in the event of rising interest rates and tighter financial conditions. In addition to these three factors, there is the effect of fiscal policy; indeed, the government already announced a first set of measures on 20 March to cushion the impact of the shock.

The government has presented its 2025 Annual Progress Report, which anticipates an improvement in the general government balance thanks to sustained economic growth, the end of the temporary tax cuts and the containment of expenditure. 

CaixaBank Research’s forecast scenario for the Spanish economy, which was finalised before the outbreak of the war in Iran, anticipates dynamic growth in 2026, albeit more moderate than that of recent years. Domestic demand, and especially private consumption and investment, began the year with sufficient momentum to enjoy strong growth and continue leading the recovery. However, the outbreak of the conflict in the Middle East opens a new chapter of global economic and political uncertainty.

The rapid and unpredictable reconfiguration of the global geopolitical order is offering no respite and requires a constant reassessment of the state of each economy. What is the starting point, what are the strengths and areas of support, and what are the weaknesses or aspects that need to be addressed in order to bolster resilience? In the fragile and uncertain international context, reinforcing this last aspect seems more necessary than ever. The overall assessment of the state of the Spanish economy is relatively positive, particularly regarding the most recent dynamics, but significant challenges remain pending if this trend is to be sustained in the medium term.

How innovative is Spain relative to its European partners? We analyse the evolution of Spain’s position in the European Commission’s innovation index.

Spain’s economy has not abandoned the path of correcting one of its traditional imbalances: its foreign indebtedness. Spain has not only racked up 12 consecutive years with a net lending capacity, but in 2023 its net lending also reached a new all-time high of 3.7% of GDP, compared to 1.5% in 2022.

Beyond the aggregate growth data and the reading of the short-term indicators, we must continue to recall that the quality of growth is just as important as its quantity, if not more so.

In this article, we focus on analysing the past evolution and future outlook for potential GDP growth. This is a key variable, since it offers an indication of our economy’s underlying growth trend.In other words, it tells us how much the economy can grow by in a sustained manner in the absence of shocks if all of the economy’s productive capacity is used and no imbalances arise.

Following the rally of 2024, the data for Q1 have confirmed that the market is in the midst of the expansionary phase of the cycle, which has led us to revise upwards our forecast scenario.

The combination of restrictions on the use of temporary contracts, coupled with the push for the use of permanent discontinuous contracts to channel work that is intermittent but recurring, has contributed to the reduction in the temporary employment rate, one of the main handicaps of Spain’s labour market and addressing it was one of the objectives pursued by the last labour reform.