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INSIDE SPAIN

Inside Spain: 50 million people by 2028 and soundproof cows

In this week’s Inside Spain, we look at how foreigners are pushing up Spain’s population to record levels and why city dwellers moving to the Spanish countryside are taking it out on ‘noisy’ cows.

Published: 10 August 2024 12:10 CEST
Inside Spain: 50 million people by 2028 and soundproof cows
One livestock farmer on the outskirts of Llanes has been taken to court because a family that had moved to a house next to his field couldn’t stand the noise the cows were making. (Photo by MIGUEL RIOPA / AFP)

Spain has never had more inhabitants. As of July 1st 2024, the country had 48,797,875 residents. 

According to the country’s national stats body INE, Spain added an extra 67,367 people to its population in the second quarter of 2024.

A study by Statista estimates that in four years, Spain will have surpassed the 50 million people mark. 

Spain is currently the fifth most populous country in Western Europe after Germany (83 million), the UK (67 million), France (64 million) and Italy (58 million), so its growing population won’t necessarily mean that it moves up in the tables. 

What this rising population does do is reduce fears of what Spain’s ageing population and low birth rate would mean for the future of the country. 

So what bucked the previous trend? Foreigners, this year mainly Colombians, Moroccans, Venezuelans, Italians, Argentinians, Hondurans, Ukrainians, Paraguayans and Hondurans. 

Even Spaniards are returning home in greater numbers – 20,600 in Q2 2024. 

Fourteen of Spain’s 17 autonomous communities gained population, except for Castilla León (-0,03 percent), Andalusia (-0,03) and Extremadura (-0,05).

Those that decry that migrant numbers have gone up by 43 percent since 2018 and that Spain is becoming ‘too’ multicultural should first consider the benefits.

Of 6.63 million foreigners living in Spain, 78 percent are working and contributing taxes to the social security system, the highest rate in Europe. 

This in turn pays the pensions and public healthcare of an ageing Spanish population that is expected to have the longest life expectancy in the world in the next 20 years.

Foreigners also have more children than Spaniards (1.35 compared to 1.12), which guarantees another generation of homegrown workers in two decades’ time.

Immigration may bring with it some negative side effects to Spain, most of which are overblown by far-right commentators, but currently the benefits clearly outweigh aspects such as a lack of integration, radicalism and crime by a small percentage of migrants. 

OPINION: Young black stars mirror migrants’ contribution to Spain

Now onto something completely different. Farmers in the green northern region of Asturias are up in arms due to the noise complaints they’re receiving from new residents who’ve moved there from the cities.

One livestock farmer on the outskirts of Llanes has been taken to court because a family that had moved to a house next to his field couldn’t stand the noise the cows were making.

Believe it or not the judge sided with the urbanites, and the farmer has had to soundproof the cows’ chains and bells.

Something similar has happened in Navia, where a milking parlour (for the city folk, that’s where cows get milked) which started work early has also been ordered to soundproof the premises and machinery after a complaint by a new neighbour.

“The problem is that people who go to live in rural areas don’t want to adapt, they want the countryside but without the countryside,” coordinator of the Asturian Rural Union (URA), Borja Fernández Fernández, told local daily La Voz de Asturias.

“They want to have farms with cows but without manure and without noise.”

Describing the situation as “surreal”, Fernádez argued “tourism is put on a pedestal” as well, and that farming should receive the same protection, if not more, given its importance to the region. 

“It’s as if I moved to Madrid and complained about an ambulance’s siren,” complained Rosa Gutiérrez Nicolás, head of another agricultural association.

As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a trend which saw Spaniards move from the cities to the countryside in search of more space and peace. In fact, 61 percent have considered doing so, according to a recent survey by property portal Fotocasa.

However, Spaniards are by and far city dwellers (81 percent lived in urban areas in 2021) and the shift to the countryside is often not as suited to their lifestyle, as much as they built up the utopian rural living in their minds.

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INSIDE SPAIN

Inside Spain: The rubbish police and Costa Blanca’s worst drought in 33 years

In this week’s Inside Spain we look at how a growing number of cities are handing out fines to residents who don’t properly dispose of rubbish and how thousands of people on the Costa Blanca cannot drink tap water due to severe drought.

Published: 24 August 2024 11:05 CEST
Inside Spain: The rubbish police and Costa Blanca's worst drought in 33 years

In 2022, the Spanish government passed a law aimed at dissuading people from littering and not recycling properly, with fines of up to €2,001 for those who left cardboard boxes outside of the correct dumpster. 

In Madrid alone, 299 people have been fined that eye-watering amount since the legislation passed, in most cases because they couldn’t get the Amazon cardboard boxes (with their name and address on them) to fit inside the paper rubbish containers.

READ ALSO: What are the recycling rules in Spain?

This has shocked many people across the country, but the truth is that most town halls in Spain have their own rules in place to prevent people from leaving furniture lying in the street, rubbish bags festering outside or putting litter in the wrong recycling bins.

Under the current approach of getting tough on those who disregard health and environmental concerns, many cities and towns are carrying out more inspections than ever.

The glitzy city of Marbella is among them, having already opened disciplinary action against 128 residents so far this year. Police officers in civilian clothing are patrolling the streets in greater numbers in a bid to catch unsuspecting offenders. Fines range from €90 to €3,000 depending on the severity. 

In Cádiz, undercover cops are also keeping a close eye on rubbish bins. In Cabo de Gata in Almería, €700 fines have been handed out to those leaving rubbish at the beach. 

In Burgos in northern Spain, €300 penalties for leaving a mattress leaning next to a dumpster. 

In Torrevieja in Alicante, new fines range from €150 for minor offences such as chucking cigarette butts on the ground to a whopping €500,000 for serious environmental hazards.

Every town and city sets its own amounts but what’s clear is that there are dozens of recent news stories from every region showcasing how littering is being treated and policed far more seriously than it once was.

In other news, Spain may have managed to avoid a nationwide drought this summer due to some welcome rain over the last eight months, but there are still places where the lack of water is causing serious consequences.

In several towns along the Costa Blanca, people have been warned not to drink tap water as a severe drought has made it saline and undrinkable. 

Teulada, Benitachell and Moraira are among them. Here tourists and locals are queuing up to fill up bottles of drinkable H20 in the midst of a sweltering summer. 

Water usage soars in the Marina Alta area, where there are 38,000 pools, one for every five inhabitants.

The northern part of Alicante province had half the average amount of rain in 2023 and only 10 percent of normal levels so far in 2024.

Copernicus, the EU’s Earth observation agency, on Friday shared a satellite image of Alicante as its photo of the day to highlight the “severe drought” the region is experiencing.

The Valencian Community declared the state of “extreme drought” last March, the worst in 33 years after an extremely hot 2023 which sapped aquifer reserves. Overdevelopment and mass tourism are also contributing enormously to the scarcity. 

There have been restrictions in numerous municipalities across the region since, but some town halls have flouted the advice and continued to allow people to fill up their pools and water their gardens.

What’s clear is that Spain’s fight against drought will never really have an end point, however full the country’s reservoirs become after a period of ‘normal’ rainfall (currently 43 percent full nationwide). 

According to scientists, Spain has the “perfect” conditions for desertification to occur: climate change, overdevelopment, huge volumes of people. From the south, to the east, to the northeast, 73 percent of Spain is at risk of becoming a desert.

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