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PETS

Spain’s new pet ID in 2022: What you need to know 

As of 2022, Spanish cats and dogs will likely need an official national ID - dubbed "el DNI Animal" - as part of a series of new pet laws aimed at bolstering animal rights in the country.

Published: 22 October 2021 11:08 CEST
Although it is yet to be confirmed whether this document will contain a photo of the animal, it will include other details such as name, date of birth and ownership history. Photo: Jonathan Daniels/Unsplash
Although it is yet to be confirmed whether this document will contain a photo of the animal, it will include other details such as name, date of birth and ownership history. Photo: Jonathan Daniels/Unsplash

Why does Spain want to introduce a national pet ID?

Spain’s General Directorate of Animal Rights aims to build a national database of pets in Spain. 

According to Spain’s Minister of Social Rights and Agenda 2030 Ione Belarra, the identification of domestic animals will serve “to guarantee that we are on the right path and have a model where no animal is left to its own devices in Spain”.

The pet ID will contain basic information relating to the animal, such as its date of birth, the number of vaccines it has had or any mistreatment carried out by its owners.

Although not officially confirmed, the new ID document will likely include a photo of the pet. 

The pet ID will reportedly make it easier to locate the owner of the animal in cases of abandonment.

In addition, the document will be compatible with the microchip that cats and dogs must have implanted at the vet when pet owners buy or adopt them.

What other documents do pet owners already need to have in Spain?

In order to legally own a pet in Spain, you need to have a health booklet (cartilla sanitaria) which includes its medical and vaccination records which has to be issued by a chartered veterinarian. This document also contains information about the pet and its owner. 

The microchip implanted under animals’ skin is also compulsory for cats and dogs in Spain, and it is currently considered the main means of identification for pets in the country.

Proof that your animal has had the rabies vaccine is also essential.

For travel purposes, your pet will need to have a pet passport, compulsory for travel within the EU since 2015. 

Veterinarian clinics are responsible for ordering these documents which contain much the same information as the upcoming DNI Animal – name, species, gender, breed, date of birth, microchip number, health record – but pet passports are only a requirement if you’re going to travel with them.

How else is Spain trying to protect its pets?

The DNI Animal is part of the draft bill for the Protection and Rights of Animals that Pedro Sánchez’s administration presented on October 6th, which also includes other measures that bolster animal rights in Spain.

One would hope that when it comes to protecting the country’s animals, there would be no major differences of opinion between Spain’s political factions. 

The draft bill is set to be discussed by Spain’s Council of Ministers in November before being debated in the Spanish Parliament, so it could be that the introduction of this animal ID will be pushed back until late 2022. 

Other measures in the draft bill include the requirement for people to do a training course before being allowed to adopt a pet, which teaches budding pet owners how to handle and care for their furry ones. 

Only fish will be sold in pet stores if the new law passes, no more puppies and kittens in the window as this is deemed to incite “compulsive buying”. Instead, dogs and cats will have to be purchased from professional breeders or adopted at rescue shelters.

There will also be a limit of five pets per household, although this won’t be applied retroactively.

The Spanish government will also consider pets to be “living beings with feelings” and not objects in custody battles.

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MONEY

Rampant branch closures and job cuts help Spain’s banks post huge earnings

Spain’s biggest banks this week reported huge profits in 2021 and cheered their return to recovery post-Covid, but ruthless cost-cutting in the form of thousands of layoffs, hundreds of branch closures and the removal of many ATMs have left customers in Spain suffering, in this latest example of ‘Capitalismo 2.0’. 

Published: 3 February 2022 13:34 CET
A man withdraws cash from a Santander branch in Madrid.
More than 3,500 Santander workers lost their jobs in Spain in 2021 and a further 2,000 more employees working for Santander across Europe were also laid off. Photo: PHILIPPE DESMAZES / AFP

Spanish banking giant Santander on Wednesday said it has bounced back from the pandemic as it returned to profit last year, beating analyst expectations and exceeding its pre-COVID earnings.

Likewise, Spain’s second-largest bank BBVA said on Thursday that it saw a strong rebound in 2021 following the Covid crisis, tripling its net profits thanks to a recovery in business activity.

It’s a similar story for Unicaja (€137 million profit in 2021), Caixabank (€5.2 billion profit thanks to merge with Bankia), Sabadell (€530 million profit last year), Abanca (€323 million profit) and all of Spain’s other main banks.

This may be promising news for Spain’s banking sector, but their profits have come at a cost for many of their employees and customers. 

In 2021, 19,000 bank employees lost their jobs, almost all through state-approved ERE layoffs, meant for companies struggling financially.

BBVA employees protest against layoffs in May 2021 in Madrid. Spain’s second-largest bank BBVA is looking to shed 3,800 jobs, affecting 16 percent of its staff, in a move denounced by unions as “scandalous”. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)

Around 11 percent of bank branches in Spain have also been closed down in 2021 as part of Spanish banks’ attempts to cut costs, even though they’ve agreed to pay just under €5 billion in compensation.

Rampant branch closures have in turn resulted in 2,200 ATMs being removed since the Covid-19 pandemic began, even though the use of cajeros automáticos went up by 20 percent in 2021.

There are now 48,300 ATMs in Spain, levels not seen since 2001.

READ MORE:

Apart from losses caused by the coronavirus crisis, Spain’s financial institutions have justified the lay-offs, branch closures and ATM removals under the premise that there was already a shift to online banking taking place among customers. 

But the problem has been around for longer in a country with stark population differences between the cities and so-called ‘Empty Spain’, with rural communities and elderly people bearing the brunt of it. 

 

Caixabank laid off almost 6,500 workers in the first sixth months of 2021. Photo: ANDER GILLENEA/AFP

Just this month, a 78-year-old Valencian man has than collected 400,000+ signatures in an online petition calling for Spanish banks to offer face-to-face customer service that’s “humane” to elderly people, spurring the Bank of Spain and even Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to publicly say they would address the problem.

READ MORE: ‘I’m old, not stupid’ – How one Spanish senior is demanding face-to-face bank service

It’s worth noting that between 2008 and 2019, Spain had the highest number of branch closures and bank job cuts in Europe, with 48 percent of its branches shuttered compared with a bloc-wide average of 31 percent.

Below is more detailed information on how Santander and BBVA, Spain’s two biggest banks, have reported their huge profits in 2021.

Santander

Driven by a strong performance in the United States and Britain, the bank booked a net profit of €8.1 billion in 2021, close to a 12-year high. 

It was a huge improvement from 2020 when the pandemic hit and the bank suffered a net loss of €8.7 billion after it was forced to write down the value of several of its branches, particularly in the UK. It was also higher than 2019, when the bank posted a net profit of €6.5 billion.

Analysts from FactSet were expecting profits of €7.9 billion. 

“Our 2021 results demonstrate once again the value of our scale and presence across both developed and developing markets, with attributable profit 25 per cent higher than pre-COVID levels in 2019,” said chief executive Ana Botin in a statement.

Net banking income, the equivalent to turnover, also increased, reaching €33.4 billion, compared to €31.9 billion in 2020. This dynamic was made possible by a strong increase in customer numbers, with the group now counting almost 153 million customers worldwide. 

“We have added five million new customers in the last 12 months alone,” said Botin.

Santander performed particularly well in Europe and North America, with profits doubling in constant euros compared to 2020. In the UK, where Santander has a strong presence, current profit even “quadrupled” over the same period to €1.6 billion.

Last year’s net loss was the first in Banco Santander’s history, after having to revise downwards the value of several of its subsidiaries, notably in the UK, because of COVID.

The banking giant, which cut nearly 3,500 jobs at the end of 2020, in September announced an interim shareholder payout of €1.7 billion for its 2021 results. “In the coming weeks, we will announce additional compensation linked to the 2021 results,” it said.

BBVA

The group, which mainly operates in Spain but also in Latin America, Mexico and Turkey, posted profits of €4.65 billion ($5.25 billion), up from €1.3 billion a year earlier.

The result, which followed a solid fourth quarter with profits of €1.34 billion, was higher than expected, with FactSet analysts expecting a figure of €4.32 billion .

Excluding non-recurring items, such as the outcome of a restructuring plan launched last year, it generated profits of 5.07 billion euros in what was the highest figure “in 10 years”, the bank said in a statement.

In 2020, the Spanish bank saw its net profit tumble 63 percent as a result of asset depreciation and provisions taken against an increase in bad loans due to the economic fallout of the virus crisis.

“The economic recovery over the past year has brought with it a marked upturn in banking activity, mainly in the loan portfolio,” the bank explained, pointing to a reduction of the provisions put in place because of Covid.

In 2021, BBVA added a “record” 8.7 million new customers, largely due to the growth of its online activities. It now has 81.7 million customers worldwide.

The group’s net interest margins also rose 6.1 percent year-on-year to €14.7 billion, said the bank, which is undergoing a cost-cutting drive.

So far, it has axed 2,935 jobs and closed down 480 branches as the banking sector undergoes increasing digitalisation and fewer and fewer transactions are carried out over the counter.

At the end of 2020, BBVA sold its US unit to PNC Financial Services for nearly 10 billion euros and decided to reinvest some of the funds in the Turkish market.

In November, it launched a bid to take full control of its Turkish lending subsidiary Garanti, offering €2.25 billion ($2.6 billion) to buy the 50.15 percent stake it does not yet own.

The deal should be finalised in the first quarter of 2022.

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