Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

INSIDE SPAIN

Inside Spain: Why Spaniards are ‘unhappy’ and their adulation of the British press

In this week’s Inside Spain review, we explain why Spain’s mediocre World Happiness Report ranking should be taken with a pinch of salt and the stark differences in which the Spanish and British press report about each other’s countries.

Published: 23 March 2024 10:43 CET
Inside Spain: Why Spaniards are 'unhappy' and their adulation of the British press
Spaniards are not as happy many would have thought according to the World Happiness Report, and sometimes they seem to care more what the UK press has to say about them their own press. (Photo by Josep LAGO / AFP)

This week, the UN released its annual World Happiness Report for 2024 and Spain yet again came in at a very average 36th place out of 143 countries. It’s actually dropped four places compared to 2023’s report.

Finland, which until recently had one of the highest suicide rates in the world, claimed top spot. 

Israel, in the midst of war with Hamas in Gaza, took fifth place. The UAE and Saudi Arabia, which have questionable human rights records and where local women have fewer rights than men, came in 22nd and 28th place respectively. 

The US, with its ample share of polarisation, inequality, gun violence and concerns over who will be in the White House for the next four years, is the world’s 23rd ‘happiest’ place.

And yes, the UK, a nation renowned for taking pride in its own misery and relishing the unhappiness of others, ranked 20th globally. 

¿Qué está pasando aquí? (What’s going on here?). How is it possible that Spaniards – who seem fundamentally happy according to anyone who’s lived or visited Spain – have told scientists from the Gallup World Poll that their lives are a bit ‘meh’ at best?

Spain’s lowly ranking is even more surprising when looking at the categories used to rank a country’s quality of life: life expectancy, social support, freedom, generosity, income and perception of corruption, which apart from the last two Spain excels at. 

All is not well in Spain, that’s for sure. Bureaucratic labyrinths, low wages, few job opportunities, entrepreneurial obstacles, rising rents and house prices are all factors that can influence life satisfaction. However, many of you will agree that it doesn’t stop Spaniards from smiling, laughing and enjoying life with their friends and loved ones. 

Let’s get back to the ‘why the low ranking’ question. El País attempted to answer the question in 2023, without really getting to the bottom of it. 

They didn’t explore one theory, however. Whereas people from other nations will be quick to say “I’m fine” when they clearly aren’t, Spaniards love to complain about virtually everything, even the trivial stuff, but in the end through a combination of evasion and good company, they’re capable of finding what most would interpret to be happiness.

Which brings us to our other topic of this week’s Inside Spain newsletter: the differences between how the Spanish press reports on what the UK press says about Spain and how the British press writes about Spain. 

Spain’s media industry doesn’t have tabloid newspapers, even though its sports newspapers (the most read and sold in the country) and its gossip magazines certainly display similar traits to those of The Sun, The Daily Mail and company (with less of a propensity to nastiness however).

A stark difference is that Spanish newspapers will often report on British newspapers writing about Spain, which reflects that there’s more of an admiration for them and interest in knowing what the UK is saying about Spain. Often, it borders on adulation: “The best beach in Spain, according to The Times”, “The best city to visit, according to The Guardian”. Do they not know themselves what their prettiest beaches and towns are? Can they not trust their own rankings and experts? The Spanish press has nothing to envy about British newspapers, nor are the opinions of UK journalists any more valid than theirs.

On the flipside, you’ll struggle to ever find The Daily Mail or The Daily Telegraph write a story about what El Mundo or ABC had to say about the latest chapter in the Brexit saga, what they think of Rishi Sunak or where the best seaside town in Blighty is. 

One of the only times British tabloids will report on Spain is when something has happened that could cause offence to their readers and spur them to angrily write “we’ll take our money elsewhere” or “they need us more than we need them”.

Rather than quoting Spanish papers for less inflammatory articles, they’ll rely on the opinion of an “expat” for the inside scoop on the best place to visit in Spain this summer or where to buy a Spanish home, but hardly ever what Spanish newspapers or columnists have to say. 

There are of course serious and reliable British correspondents reporting on Spain for UK broadsheets, but the sad truth is that a sense of inferiority on the part of the Spanish press and superiority in some British news outlets is perceivable in their reporting. 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

INSIDE SPAIN

Inside Spain: Madrid’s mango-scented tarmac and the €1M-a-year Airbnb host

In this week’s Inside Spain, we find out why Madrid residents are kicking up a stink over mango-smelling tarmac and how not everything is what it seems with normal-looking Airbnb hosts in Spain.

Published: 27 April 2024 13:31 CEST
Inside Spain: Madrid’s mango-scented tarmac and the €1M-a-year Airbnb host

Residents in some streets of Spain’s capital woke up this week to the scent of tropical fruit, as the city hall rolled out new mango-scented tarmac as an bizarre means of improving foul-smelling odours outdoors, as well as apparently hiding the scent of freshly poured asphalt itself. 

“Those of us who have an especially large pituitary, as is my case, will appreciate it even more,” said Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida. 

“I’m getting dizzy from the strong smell of mango, I live on the first floor and I had to close all the windows for it not to smell indoors,” one less appreciative resident told local TV channel TeleMadrid. 

This mango aroma addition is a trial that’s part of Madrid’s “Operation Asphalt” (a plan to improve city roads), but it’s somewhat backfired on social media among disgruntled madrileños who claim it would’ve been much better to plant fruit trees if that’s a suitable way of improving street smells.

Unfortunately, Madrid authorities have been doing the opposite of that, having chopped down almost 9,000 trees over the past two years.

 Almeida has responded to critics by arguing that more than 5,000 trees have been planted during that time, although their distribution is far less even than it used to be, with the districts of Fuencarral- El Pardo and Hortaleza on the northern outskirts of the city housing 90 percent of these new trees. 

Nowhere exemplifies this better than Madrid’s main square Puerta del Sol as its revamp in 2022 included plenty of new cement but no trees.

It’s a concern for many Madrid residents dreading the dangerously high heat of the summer months, and who are aware that trees not only provide shade but help to keep neighbourhood temperatures down. 

Another story that’s been doing the rounds in Spain this week is that of Fran and Marta, an apparently normal couple with a young daughter who are Airbnb hosts, only that they have a portfolio of 336 properties in Madrid and rake in over €1 million a year. If anyone is a so-called ‘superhost’, it’s them. 

They don’t really own all those homes, they just manage them for the real owners through a company that uses endearing family photos and first names on their Airbnb profiles rather than a more distant and corporate company logo. 

Spanish newspaper El Confidencial lifted the lid on Fran, who is a real person, but sometimes goes by Diego, Rodrigo or Raúl, all with roughly 100 Airbnb listings each. Most of these properties don’t have a tourist property licence. 

Interviewed on Spanish daytime talk show TardeAR, whose host Ana Rosa praised him for the “enormously successful marketing operation” of pretending to be a normal small property holder to Airbnb users, Fran said he only had a mortgage for a small flat in the capital and that “you don’t earn that much”. 

“There are a lot of fake rich people when it comes to holiday lets,” he stated. 

What there are more of than we realise is fake landlords on Airbnb, at a time when the question of short-term holiday lets and their impact on local property and rental markets in Spain has never been greater. 

READ MORE: Who really owns all the Airbnb-style lets in Spain?

SHOW COMMENTS