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MONEY

The food products that are more expensive than ever in Spain

The Spanish economy has suffered rocketing inflation rates in the last year. It has been felt until mostly in utilities bills, but now it is causing prices on food products to increase, some of them in particular.

supermarket majorca spain
Historic inflation now hits the kitchen table in Spain. Photo: Photo by JAIME REINA / AFP

Spaniards have been feeling the pinch of inflation in the last year. In October, electricity bills were sixty-three percent higher than the previous year, according to statistics from Spain’s Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE). Spain’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) closed the year at 6.5 percent, fractionally lower than forecast but still the highest level in almost thirty years.

The inflation rate reflects the strongest rise in 29 years, a rise in prices that has been caused by rocketing fuel and electricity bills, and the direction of travel seems to be one way, unfortunately: the CPI has now experienced twelve consecutive increases.

But the latest INE figures published this week show that inflation is now being reflected in food and non-alcoholic beverages: prices were 5 percent higher overall in December 2021 than in the same month of 2020, the highest number since the 2008 financial crisis and ensuing recession that crippled the Spanish economy. 

In the last year spanish consumers have faced the sharpest price increases of any major European economy, and they are now being felt in everyday items: olive oil is 26.7 percent more expensive than in December 2020, pasta 15.2 percent, soft drinks 11.7, fresh fruit percent 9 percent and fresh fish 6.6 percent.

Even poultry meat (6.5 percent), fruit juices (6.3 percent), eggs (6.2 percent), milk (5 percent), coffee (4.6 percent), and bread (3.8 percent) have seen slight price increases that will be felt in households across Spain. 

Two more specific price increases that may concern some Spaniards more than others, however, are on beer and tobacco. Beer prices have risen due to an increase in the price of cereals, and it is believed that the government intends to increase tax incomes on tobacco by at least 5.5 percent.

In the last year food and beverage prices had been somewhat stable, and relatively unaffected by inflation, but since October they have increased from 1.7 percent to 5 percent to round out the year. 

Looking forward, the economic forecast does not look promising: the core inflation rate – a metric which actually deducts electricity prices, a far more volatile product, from the calculation – is a measure used by economics to forecast whether short-term price rises are turning into structural ones.

This core inflation indicator reached 2.1 percent year-on-year in December , the highest rate since March 2013, and it represents the fifth consecutive month in which core inflation has risen.

Throughout the last year economists had hoped that the recent price shock would be transitory, and tied to the fate of the volatile utilities market, particularly the international natural gas price, but speaking last week, former Spanish Minister and now vice president of the European Central Bank, Luis de Guindos, suggested that inflation, and by extension, price increases, ‘may not be so transitory.’ 

According to a recent survey by the Bank of Spain, 60 percent of national companies plan to raise their prices in the coming year. 

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TERRORISM

Spain sees heightened terror risk amid global conflicts

Amid rising tensions and conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere around the world, a meeting by Spain's National Security Council has identified several threats to national security, some pre-existing and some new.

Spain sees heightened terror risk amid global conflicts

Global conflict and instability has raised the terror and security risk in Spain. This is what Spain’s National Security Council (CSN) has concluded following a meeting with government ministers on Tuesday to approve security reports and outline new anti-terror strategies. A 61-page document was compiled to replace the previous one approved in 2019 and will be valid for five years.

Among the topics discussed, which are outlined here on the National Security Council website, were the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine and the heightened security threats they pose to Spain.

The war in Gaza, the Council states, presents “a real and direct risk” of an increase in “the terrorist threat, violent extremism and the emergence of new movements that promote a radical and violent ideology.”

READ ALSO: Spain could enforce conscription of ordinary citizens if there is war

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the document stresses, is also “a potential catalyst for terrorism”, as it “has led to an increase in the circulation of arms and explosives [in Europe], as well as the participation in the war of volunteer fighters of other nationalities”.

These uncertain global conditions could be exploited by groups or individuals “to undermine public security”, the document adds, and suggests that “state actors could carry out terrorist actions,” in what appears to be an allusion to the assassination of a Russian soldier in Alicante earlier in the year.

READ ALSO: Mystery surrounds death of Russian helicopter deserter in Spain

The meeting and report also outlined broader “risks and threats to national security” grouped into 16 categories, some older and long-established, some much more modern. They range from terrorism and violent radicalisation to the effects of climate change, space vulnerability, cyberspace, organised crime, migratory flows, foreign espionage and interference from abroad.

The CSN detects growing dangers to Spanish airspace, namely “events of commercial satellite launches from aerial platforms crossing controlled airspace, events of re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere of satellite launcher debris, uncontrolled hot air balloon overflights and an increase in drone overflights over military bases,” things that have all been noted in Spain in recent years.

In terms of terrorism, despite the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine Islamic terrorism remains the greatest threat to Spanish security. “The repeated dismantling of the leaderships of Daesh and Al Qaeda has not succeeded in eliminating these groups, which act in a more decentralised manner than in previous years,” the report states.

During the period covered by the previous security strategy (2019-2023) “more than 110 [security] operations related to terrorism activities have been carried out,” more than 90 of which were linked to jihadist terrorism, the document details. Just 5 percent were linked to domestic terrorism.

Foreign spies operating in Spain were also highlighted as a threat. The CSN report stated that the decision to expel 27 Russian diplomats from Spain at the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was useful in this regard. “These expulsions significantly reduced their ability to operate on European territory, which led to a notable decrease in the rate of activity of foreign intelligence services in Spain,” the report states.

READ ALSO: Judge in Spain extends probe into Catalan separatist’s ‘Russia ties’

However, the potential threat from the Kremlin is again mentioned as the driving force behind the barrage of hoaxes and disinformation campaigns. In the case of Spain, Moscow reportedly “focuses on trying to spread a distorted image of migration in the Mediterranean and the situation in Ceuta and Melilla”.

But it’s not just the Russians attempting to misinform the public in Spain. The report also points to “official Chinese media and their propagandists on social networks in Spanish have amplified many pro-Russian narratives”, with messages “based on expressing a rejection of the US and the current international order”.

The report lists 83 Russian disinformation incidents and 12 Chinese in the last year alone. Among these, several were aimed at “creating mistrust” in Spain’s electoral processes.

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