President Pedro Sánchez has brought to the 41st Annual Meeting of the Cercle d’Economia the commitment to begin processing the 2027 State budgets in the coming days. “We will start processing them this very week” with the approval of the ministerial order that activates the entire machinery, he announced.
A critical Europeanist is defined. The British Martin Wolf (London, 1946) has received the European Construction award given each year by the Cercle d’Economia. His columns in the Financial Times have inspired the debate on the global economy for decades.
The National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC) approved on Monday a report that represents a setback for Aena’s investment plan for the period between 2027 and 2031. The regulator recommends a reduction of airport fees by 0.59% annually, compared to the airport manager’s proposal, which advocates increasing them by 3.8% per year to undertake, among other things, the expansion of El Prat airport.
European regulation slows investment on the continent and causes much of the savings generated in the region to end up fleeing to the United States. “Regulation and European fragmentation reduce market agility,” said Tomás Muniesa, president of Caixabank, during his speech at the Cercle d’Economia Meeting, held this week in Barcelona.
It was not possible to bring positions closer between Catalonia and Galicia regarding the proposed reform of the financing system in the colloquium held this Tuesday at the Cercle d’Economia. In a forceful tone, President Salvador Illa defended that the model agreed upon between the Government and ERC reduces inequalities between communities and warned that Catalonia “is not going to ask for permission to make proposals or to lead Spain.” His counterpart in Galicia, Alfonso Rueda, denounced that the bilaterality contemplated in the new model is negative for all communities because it encourages “divide and conquer.” And he asserted that “I am not going to ask for permission either.”
The Government will face a very complicated path to reach an agreement on the reform of regional financing. Yesterday, Monday, the Ministry of Finance, led by Arcadi España, announced that it had sent letters to the ministries of the autonomous communities in order to arrange bilateral meetings to agree on a new financing system. However, today the majority of communities with Popular Party governments have already decided that they will not attend these meetings with the Secretary of State for Finance, Jesús Gascón.
The King entered this Tuesday the plenary hall of the Palau de Congressos in Barcelona welcomed by applause, surrounded by the president of the Cercle, Teresa García Milà, and the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, and urged Europe to wake up and regain its pride above the criticisms it receives in these turbulent times. “To the most skeptical, it should be reminded that one of the constants of the construction of united Europe has been to make real what seemed a distant aspiration, even a utopia. The entire integration process has been a journey from the improbable and extremely complex to the real and tangible.”
The Government of Spain has responded to the complaints from the autonomous communities and has approved this Tuesday in the Council of Ministers a royal decree-law that includes advance payments corresponding to 2026, so that they can be allocated to the maintenance of public services in each of the territories.
The impact of the war in Iran on the energy system has put Europe in front of the mirror. Is it possible to maintain supply on the continent in the face of global-scale disruptions like those experienced in the Strait of Hormuz? The Annual Meeting of the Cercle d’Economia brought together this Tuesday two heavyweights of the sector in Spain, the president of Naturgy, Francisco Reynés, and that of Repsol, Antonio Brufau, to resolve this question and many others. And their answer to this first question is clear: Spain can withstand the “shock,” but only as long as the conflict does not last too long.
Catalonia was the top tourist destination in Spain in the month of April. The autonomous community received 1.88 million visitors, 7.7% more than in the same month of the previous year. It represents 20.8% of the total visitors to the country in the fourth month of the year.