• European immigration is Spain’s earliest and now accounts for a quarter of all immigrants (some 2,400,000 people).
• European immigrants in Spain outnumber Spanish emigrants to other European countries by a factor of two to one.
• It is a highly heterogeneous type of immigration: approximately half come from countries with a higher per capita income than Spain’s. A third of the latter are descended from former Spanish emigrants.
• European immigration from wealthy countries is no longer skewed towards a ‘migration of retirees’, as it was in the 20^th century. It predominantly comprises an economically active population, with a high level of education, occupying senior positions at work and earning higher average salaries than their Spanish counterparts.
• Romanian and Bulgarian immigration is declining: almost one third have returned to their home countries over the past 15 years.
• European immigrants’ activity and employment rates are similar to those of native Spaniards, but are slightly lower owing to a lower female activity.
• In total, European immigrants occupy 6.3% of jobs in Spain, but their presence is much higher in the real estate sector (16%), a phenomenon related to their geographical clustering in the most touristy parts of Spain.

Analysis

This analysis is the fifth and last in the series that the Elcano Royal Institute has published on how immigrants in Spain have integrated into the labour market. The first, titled ‘Immigration and the labour market in Spain’, analysed the entirety of the immigrant population and its most striking characteristics from the perspective of its relationship with the labour market, while the next three scrutinised Latin American, African and Asian immigration, respectively, in greater detail. This paper focuses on immigrants originating from Europe, both EU and non-EU countries.

Immigration from European countries with high per capita incomes is one of the earliest in Spain, although analyses of immigration have ignored it for decades on the grounds that it was a non-occupational form of movement, related to retirement and people who were not economically active, whether retired or not, living predominantly on Spain’s coasts and islands. This idea, which in crude terms may have approximated to the reality of the 1970s, 80s and early 90s, has become increasingly inaccurate, not only because of the major contribution to immigration made by people of working age from Eastern European countries but also because of the change in the profile of immigrants from ‘wealthy’ countries such as the UK, Germany, France and Italy. This type of immigration has become increasingly occupational in nature, albeit not motivated by the difference between the levels of wealth in their home countries and Spain, but rather by a range of highly varied causes.

As far back as 2008 the Elcano Royal Institute was already drawing attention to the unwarranted indifference to this type of migration and to the misguidedness of treating it in global terms as ‘leisure-based’ or ‘residential’ immigration. The proportion of the ‘elderly’ is much higher in this group than in any other group of immigrants, but at the same time its bulk is now made up of economic migrants.

As with the previous papers in this series, the chief sources used are the Continuous Municipal Register (Padrón Continuo de Población), the Continuous Population Statistics (Estadística Continua de Población) and the Active Population Survey (Encuesta de Población Activa, EPA) (EPA microdata for the fourth quarter of 2024), all compiled by the National Statistics Institute (INE). Based on such data, the analysis begins by setting out the basic characteristics of European immigrants in Spain, subsequently focusing on pertinent information regarding their integration into the employment market.

A preliminary analysis points to four clearly differentiated sub-groups:

• Europeans from EU member states with lower per capita incomes than Spain’s (Romania, Bulgaria, Portugal, Poland…).
• Europeans from ‘wealthy’ EU countries (Germans, Italians, French… including British immigrants here too).
• Non-EU Europeans from countries with lower per capita income than Spain’s (Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Turkey…).
• The descendants of Spanish emigrants, born in EU countries.

The context: size, evolution, composition and characteristics of European immigration in Spain

It is worth mentioning that the definition of international migrant used by all the papers in this series is the one adopted by the Population Division of the United Nations, namely anyone who lives in a country other than the one of their birth, regardless of their legal status in the country of residence. Thus, according to the most recent aggregated data compiled by the Continuous Population Statistics (INE), the total number of European immigrants in Spain on 1 January 2025 was 2,417,433 people (Figure 1), which accounts for 26% of all immigrants.

After rapid growth in the earliest years of the present century, driven particularly by Romanians and Bulgarians, the 2008 financial crisis curtailed the arrival of European immigrants, only to see a modest recovery and climb once again starting in 2018, in a new influx, this time led by Ukrainians and Russians. Overall, their numbers have trebled over the course of the century, but the much greater increase in immigration from elsewhere (especially from Latin America) has caused their share of the whole, which reached as high as 39% in 2008, to decline. In any event, immigrants from the wealthy EU countries are the most likely to be under-recorded (many do not enrol either in the Foreigners’ Register or the Municipal Register), meaning that their real number may be considerably higher than that shown in the statistics. Such under-registration would basically affect those that are not part of the Spanish employment market. The spread of so-called ‘digital nomads’ in the wake of the pandemic –people who work in Spain for companies located elsewhere, or as freelancers– is a poorly understood and little-measured phenomenon, which is probably not caught by the official records.

Romanians are the largest nationality among European immigrants, with 521,000 residents, followed at some distance by British (281,584), French (219,791) and Ukrainian immigrants (209,592). Annex 1 displays data for all the European countries identified in the Annual Population Census, 2025.

The volume of Romanian and Bulgarian immigration has been in continuous decline over the last 14 years. The Romanian community once numbered as high as 750,000 people (2012), but the improvement of the economic outlook in Romania, the stalling of their prospects in Spain and the shortage of housing has led to 30% of them returning. The same has happened with Bulgarian immigration, which has dropped from 145,000 to 102,000 in the same period (30%). This reversion among the two dominant sources of EU immigration from countries with a lower per capita income than Spain’s is indicative of the strict limits on the opportunities Spain offers to this type of immigration.

Unlike the immigrant groups analysed in the previous parts of this series, European immigrants are extremely heterogeneous in terms of the average income levels in their home countries, a difference that affects all the other major components. Meanwhile, their age structure has a relatively weak weighting in the age group that dominates among all other immigrant communities, that of 20-44 years old, owing to the number of retired immigrants among those originating from high-income European countries (accounting for around 33% of the total for this group).

As far as gender is concerned, overall European immigration shows a slight female predominance of 52%, which is similar to the native population, although in the case of two of the main source countries, Ukraine and Russia, there is a notable imbalance, with 59% and 61% women, respectively. This skewing towards women has been a longstanding feature of Russian and Ukrainian migration into Spain, but has become more pronounced following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which paved the way to the departure of Ukrainian women and children (Ukrainian martial law prevents men aged 18-60 from leaving the country), granted refuge by the EU’s Temporary Protection Directive.

As far as their territorial distribution is concerned, the proportion of European immigrants in the total population exceeds 10% in the provinces of Alicante and Málaga (Figure 4), the favoured destinations of British and German pensioners, as well as the epicentres of the Russian and Ukrainian diasporas. In another five coastal provinces (Almería, the Balearic Islands, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Castellón and Gerona) European immigrants account for more than 7% of the total. These areas are all highly attractive to retirees and workers from Western Europe, with a buoyant employment market in the agrifoods sector and/or services occupied by Eastern European workers. On the other hand, unlike the situation among Latin American and Asian immigrants, their relative frequency in the provinces of Madrid and Barcelona is lower than their presence in Spain as a whole.

In absolute terms (in other words, not relative to the total population of each province) Madrid, Alicante and Barcelona have the greatest number of European residents. In Madrid the largest group is made up of Romanians: a third of all Romanian immigrants in Spain live in Madrid (111,000). In Barcelona, Italians take first place (35,000). In some coastal areas and the islands, the tendency of European immigrants from high per capita income countries to settle in specific areas has created their own employment niches, with jobs dedicated to providing all manner of services to such communities of Britons, Germans, etc., ranging from hospitality to maintenance services, gardening, estate agency, education, legal and leisure services, and so on.

European immigrants’ integration into the Spanish employment market

Based on the microdata of the Active Population Survey, the main features that characterise the mode and intensity of European immigrants’ integration into the Spanish employment market are identified here. The data relate to individuals aged 25-59, with the goal of excluding young people still in education, as well as adults already retired from the employment market, thereby constituting a group comparable to their native counterparts (defined as born in Spain to parents both of whom were also born in Spain), among whom employment activity is very low outside this age range.

The European immigration data are also compared with those of immigrants from the rest of the world,[1] and are broken down into four sub-groups that jointly account for 96% of the entire European population resident in Spain. Three criteria were used for this classification: the home country’s membership or otherwise of the EU; the country’s level of per capita income; and kinship with Spanish emigrants.

This classification enables separate consideration to be given to the offspring of former Spanish emigrants, born in other countries but subsequently ‘returning’ to Spain. Meanwhile, membership or otherwise of the EU is a key factor in the migration process because it determines the freedom of movement and therefore the context in which potential migrants take their decisions. Lastly, the level of income in the home country is a factor that motivates one type of migration or another, both in terms of its volume and its parameters of age, training and orientation towards specific sectors. The latter criterion enables immigrants from the EU’s ‘wealthy’ countries (France, Germany, Italy…) to be differentiated from those from Romania, Bulgaria and other EU countries with lower per capita incomes than Spain’s.

Data based on the Municipal Registry do not reveal parents’ origins, meaning that it is not possible to use this source to identify the offspring of Spanish emigrants who now live in Spain. The EPA, on the other hand, does permit such a differentiation, which here is conducted for the whole of the European immigrant population aged 25-59:

• Immigrants from EU countries with lower per capita incomes than Spain’s (‘EU LICs’, Low Income Countries), a group essentially comprising Romanians and Bulgarians, with smaller contributions from Portuguese, Polish, Hungarian, etc, immigrants. This is the largest group, with 739,000 people aged 25-59.
• Immigrants from EU countries with higher per capita incomes than Spain’s, with both parents born abroad (henceforth ‘EU HICs’, High Income Countries,). This group also includes British immigrants, given that their country belonged to the EU when a large proportion of them migrated to Spain and the post-Brexit agreements sealed by Spain and the UK bestow a privileged status on such immigrants compared with other non-EU immigrants. They make up 306,000 people aged 25-59.
• Immigrants from non-EU low per capita income countries (‘Non-EU LICs’, now mostly comprising Ukrainians and Russians): 279,000 people aged 25-59.
• Immigrants from EU countries with higher per capita incomes than Spain’s, with at least one parent born in Spain (henceforth ‘EU HIC immigrants of Spanish origin’): 147,000 people aged 25-59.

The details of these categories are set out in Annex 2. This classification excludes 4% of all European immigrants in Spain, namely those who come from high per capita income countries that are not part of the EU, such as Switzerland, Norway, Andorra and Liechtenstein. Given their minimal size in the Municipal Register and in the EPA sample, they have been left out of the analysis.

A preeminent factor determining immigrants’ integration into the employment market is their educational attainment level, an area in which European immigrants aged 25-59 are better positioned than any other of the main communities present in Spain, whether foreigners or natives (Figure 5). However, the differences between the European sub-groups are remarkable: the percentage of EU HIC immigrants who have completed higher education is 10 percentage points higher than their counterparts with at least one Spanish parent (which is in turn identical to the percentage of native Spaniards), and almost three times greater than EU LIC immigrants. Also notable is the high educational attainment level of the non-EU LIC immigrants, especially in the case of the Russians. In all groups there is an educational gulf in favour of women, although this is greater in the case of non-EU European female immigrants: 52% of such women have completed higher education compared to 38% of their male counterparts.

In terms of activity and employment rates,[2] the data for all European immigrants aged 25-59 reveal figures somewhat lower than for their native counterparts (Figure 6). Particularly noteworthy here is the high activity rate among EU immigrants from wealthy countries: the French, Italians, Britons, Germans, Belgians, etc, who reside in Spain and are aged 25-59 are as much ‘economic migrants’ as the Latin Americans in the same age range. As pointed out, a peculiarity of this group continues to be the high percentage of people who exceed this age range (33%) and who therefore may be deemed as being mostly removed from the employment market.

In contrast to their high educational attainments, non-EU LIC immigrants (predominantly Russians and Ukrainians) have a notably low rate of involvement in the labour market. In this group there is both a low rate of female participation in the labour market (low activity) and a marked skewing towards women: 60% of this population is female. Among Russian women the activity rate is only 65%, probably because many of them are people with high incomes who do not need a job or because they are engaged in activities that the EPA does not pick up. Meanwhile, many of the Ukrainian women resident in Spain are refugees who arrived in the wake of the Russian invasion in 2022, often caring for small children and generally unversed in the local language, something that has impeded their entry into the employment market.

The unemployment rate among immigrants from wealthy countries is lower than that among native Spaniards. However, that of EU immigrants from low-income countries is high, identical to that of non-EU immigrants (Figure 8). This suggests that having an EU passport is not an advantage in the Spanish employment market. Indeed, EU citizenship is a requirement only for acquiring a civil service job (access to the public sector under the heading of general public employees is open to any nationality).

The distribution of the sectors of activity where European immigrants work reveals a differentiated pattern depending on their origins. Immigrants descended from former Spanish emigrants are, as might be expected, most similar to their native counterparts in terms of their distribution by economic sector, with a somewhat higher presence in manufacturing industry. Practically all of them have Spanish nationality and their rate of employment in the civil service is similar to that of natives.

Meanwhile, among those from high per capita income countries (with no Spanish kinship) there is a notable involvement in the hospitality sector (related to their clustering on the coasts) and professional, scientific and technical activities. In the former, their percentage is three times greater than their native counterparts and in the latter it is twice as great. Involvement in education is also somewhat greater than among natives (in the private sector), at 10%. However, despite the holding of an EU passport theoretically opening the doors to the civil service, their presence there is extremely low: workers in this group do not account for even 1% of those employed by the public administration. Language and the educational content received in their home countries are likely to be the main stumbling blocks making it difficult for such immigrants to enter the Spanish civil service.

Among those coming from lower per capita incomes than Spain’s, whether EU nationals or otherwise, there is a notable presence in construction, hospitality and domestic service, with percentages significantly higher than those of native Spaniards in all three cases. Only EU nationals however (Romanians, Bulgarians, etc) have a high presence in agriculture and transport.

Although the whole of European immigration accounts for 6.3% of total employment in Spain, in three sectors they make up more than 10% of the workforce: hospitality, domestic activities and real estate activities (Figure 10). The European presence is especially high in the case of the latter: they hold 16% of the jobs in the estate agency sector, and the share of non-EU immigrants (essentially Russians in this case) is similar to that of Europeans from wealthy countries.

At the other extreme, the sector where European workers hold the smallest share of jobs is the Public Administration, Defence and Social Security, where their numbers are made up almost exclusively of immigrants with at least one Spanish parent, especially those born in France and Switzerland.

As far as their professional situation in Spain is concerned, the overall distribution of European workers aged 25-59 bears the closest similarity to that of their native counterparts, with major internal differences (Figure 11).

The offspring of Spaniards are employed in the public sector (both as general contracted employees and as civil servants) in the same proportion as native Spaniards: one in five, or 20%, work in this sector. Excluding such descendants of Spaniards, all other European immigrants, especially those from wealthy countries, tend to be self-employed and entrepreneurs more frequently than their native counterparts. Indeed, three out of 10 European immigrants from wealthy countries are self-employed or entrepreneurs, compared to 1.3 in the case of native Spaniards. Working as self-employed and as entrepreneurs is also relatively common among Russians and Ukrainians (2.2 out of 10).

European immigrants’ overall presence in ‘white collar’ occupations is similar to that of native Spaniards (Figure 12), with major internal differences. Thus, among EU HIC immigrants, 51% are employed in the three highest occupational categories, 9 percentage points above native Spaniards (42%), whereas the percentage falls to 17% in the case of EU LIC immigrants, considerably lower than native Spaniards. 10% of EU HIC immigrants are directors and managers, double the percentage of native Spaniards.

For their part, the twofold nature of non-EU LIC immigrants emerges in this section owing to the differences in position of Russian and Ukrainian immigrants, the two major sources of migration in this group. High-ranking jobs abound among the Russians, whereas people performing basic roles are highly frequent among the Ukrainians. The average data for the entire group conceal these differences.

With regard to earnings, the statistics published by the Social Security Administration (TGSS)[3] for average taxable income include data relating to citizens of the 27 EU member states as well as from the UK and Ukraine. The data classify people by their nationality rather than their country of birth or their parents, eliminating the possibility of reproducing the same type of analysis that was conducted on the basis of the EPA.

The data show that European immigrants’ earnings are markedly higher than Spaniards’ in the case of the French, Germans, Swedish, Dutch, Belgians and Irish, slightly higher in the case of Italians, Portuguese, Hungarians, Britons and Poles, and lower in the case of Lithuanians, Romanians, Bulgarians and Ukrainians (the TGSS offers no data about Russians).

The case of the Poles, Portuguese and Hungarians is particularly remarkable, with per capita incomes lower than Spain’s in their home countries, but higher earnings than Spaniards in Spain, which suggests that the type of inbound immigration into Spain from these countries is specifically of the well-qualified variety. The inverse situation pertains in the case of Lithuania, with a per capita income that is currently higher than Spain’s, but with immigrants who earn lower salaries in Spain.

An earnings gap in favour of men is observable in all the nationalities, albeit with significant differences: whereas female Lithuanians’ taxable income is 10% lower than their male counterparts, the difference in the case of Ukrainian women is 24%, which confirms the already-mentioned employment difficulties that many Ukrainian women have encountered in Spain in the wake of the Russian invasion.

As in the previous papers, attention has been paid to the school drop-out rate among youngsters aged 16-20 in this group of immigrants. Overall, this shows a school drop-out rate of 23%, an intermediate percentage that is closer to that of native youngsters (15%) than those who come from Latin America and Africa (34% and 35%, respectively), but also with the peculiarity of having a higher female than male drop-out rate (Figure 14). And although the EPA sample of Europeans in this age range is too small to determine significant differences between the four sub-groups scrutinised here, there are signs of a greater school drop-out rate among EU LIC youngsters.

Conclusions

Spain has become a powerful magnet for immigrants from other European countries, whether or not they are EU member states. In a border-free European space that facilitates movement of all kinds, Spain offers attractive living conditions and specific employment niches that have attracted some two and a half million people, 26% of all immigrants living in Spain. By comparison, Spanish emigrants living in other European countries are less than half as numerous, at around 1,164,000. This figure probably underestimates the actual number of Spanish emigrants in Europe, but the same may be said about the number of European immigrants in Spain.

It is a much more heterogenous community than any of the others that have been scrutinised in this series of analyses: they include retirees living on the coasts and islands, Ukrainian refugees, Russians (many of whom are wealthy), executives and entrepreneurs from the UK and Germany, etc, less well-qualified Romanian and Bulgarian workers and the descendants of former Spanish emigrants. The differences are remarkable depending not only on their origins but also within each group: among the British, for example, there are many people holding directorships and entrepreneurial roles, but also retirees living on modest pensions, English teachers with low incomes and gardeners working in residential communities inhabited solely by their compatriots. Russians with large fortunes who invest in the coastal real estate market are a well-known phenomenon, but there are also many Russians doing jobs of all kinds. Among Ukrainian immigrants, the situation faced by those who have been settled longest is very different from that of refugee women who have arrived since 2022.

Such a variety of profiles and circumstances makes it difficult to draw general conclusions about this type of immigration as a whole. The important point is to highlight these internal differences and to emphasise that immigration from wealthy countries predominantly involves workers and is not an immigration of ‘retirees’. Another important phenomenon is a major regression among Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants, 30% in both cases, which constitutes a wake-up call regarding factors that limit people’s willingness to remain on Spanish soil: the restriction to certain occupational niches, the confinement to low salaries and the growing shortage of housing.

[1] As in the previous parts of this series, the term ‘Latin Americans’ includes in this analysis all those immigrants from the aforementioned geographical area whose home countries are identified in the EPA (with the exception of Puerto Rico), following the same criterion with respect to the ‘Africans’ and the ‘Asians’ (with the exception of Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Taiwan). In all cases the population being scrutinised is restricted to the 25-59 age range.

[2] The activity rate is defined as the percentage of the population in the age group concerned (in this case aged 25-59) that is in work or is looking for work, whereas the employment rate is defined as the percentage of the population in the age group concerned (in this case aged 25-59) that is in work. The unemployment rate is calculated using the total active population in this age range (not the total population in the age range).

[3] The Active Population Survey (EPA) does not include questions about earnings, hence reliance on the Social Security Administration’s average taxable income statistics, where individuals are classified by their nationality, not by their country of birth. The maximum taxable income threshold in 2025 was €4,909 per month, and therefore earnings higher than this figure are not included.

Annex 1. European immigrants living in Spain on 1 January 2025 by country of birth

Figure 15. Number of European immigrants living in Spain by country of birth, 1/I/2025

Annex 2. Grouping of European immigrants aged 25-59 based on the EPA microdata

The four groups identified are composed as follows:

• ‘EU LIC’ (Low-Income Countries) immigrants: 739,000 people aged 25-59 born in EU countries with per capita incomes lower than Spain’s, with both parents born abroad. They represent 50% of all European immigrants in this age group. This group is made up of people born in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Romania. Some of these countries have recently overtaken Spain’s per capita income (such as Lithuania and Slovenia) but have been below it for the bulk of the time that the migratory inflows into Spain have taken place (between 1990 and the present day).

• ‘EU HIC’ (High-Income Countries) immigrants: 306,000 people aged 25-59 born in EU countries with per capita incomes higher than Spain’s, with both parents born abroad. They represent 21% of all European immigrants in this age group. This group is made up of people born in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the UK and Sweden.

• ‘Non-EU LIC’ immigrants: 279,282 people aged 25-59 born in non-EU countries in Eastern Europe, with per capita incomes lower than Spain’s, with both parents born abroad. They represent 19% of all European immigrants in this age group. This group is made up of people born in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldavia, Russia, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine.

•  ‘EU HIC immigrants of Spanish origin’: 146,533 people aged 25-59 born in EU or former EU countries, with per capita incomes higher than Spain’s, with at least one parent born in Spain. They represent 10% of all European immigrants in this age group. The birth countries of this group are the same as the ‘EU HIC’ group.

This classification excludes immigrants from wealthy non-EU countries (Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Andorra, Norway…), which account for 4% of all European immigrants in Spain aged 25-59.

La entrada Immigration and the labour market in Spain (V): European immigration se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

Today, 56% support rejoining the EU (35% against), according to the polling group YouGov, and 22% of those who voted to leave now back returning to the bloc. Among young adults, the group most aggrieved by Brexit, 68% of respondents aged between 18 and 34 are in favour of rejoining, according to an IPSOS poll this month. Historically, voters tend not to change their minds soon after referendums. This has been the experience, with some fluctuations, in Canada, Scotland, Norway and Switzerland. Brexit would seem to be a notable exception.

Apart from ardently faithful Brexiteers, mainly concentrated in Reform UK and the Conservative Party, there is little support among the other parties for continuing to be outside the EU (see Figure 1). Public support for a closer relationship with the EU –without actually rejoining the bloc, the Single Market or Customs Union– stands at 70% (see Figure 2). Among Leave voters, 61% support a closer relationship.

Figure 1. Support for rejoining the EU by political party (%)

Figure 2. Support for a closer relationship with the EU by political party (%)

The Brexit referendum was a cipher for widespread anger and disillusionment among the public. One of my nieces voted Leave, because of the long NHS waiting list. The NHS England (population, 59 million) list stood at 3.8 million cases at the time of the referendum, surged to 7.7 million in August 2023, after the start of COVID in 2021, and five years on, with the pandemic long over, is around 7.1 million. The public health waiting list of Spain (population 50 million) is 4.9 million.

An immensely complex issue was supposed to have been resolved by a binary question (by its very nature simplistic) –and a victory for Leave to have set the UK on a path to greater prosperity and sovereignty– but the issue has not been resolved and the prosperity has not arrived.

Neither those who voted Remain or Leave are happy with the outcome. Remainers, because they feel more acutely the loss of the EU’s benefits, not the least the cherished freedom of movement (Brits are now in the longer non-EU queue at airports), and anger at the false claims (often outright lies) made by the Leave campaign, most famously the slogan on the side of the Leave campaign-bus asserting ‘We send the EU £350 million a week, let’s fund our NHS instead’. NHS England boss Simon Stevens called the figure an illusion. Another piece of disinformation was that Turkey was poised to join the EU and this would trigger a massive wave of Turkish immigrants.

Leavers are unhappy because Brexit, in their view, has been handled clumsily and not properly applied. Their arguments are redolent of communism’s true believers: ‘real communism was never tried’.

There is ample evidence to show Brexit’s negative impact since it came into force as of 31 January 2020, but the immediate recession predicted by the Treasury –dubbed ‘Project Fear’ by the Leave campaign– was misleading and did not happen. The impact from the COVID-19 pandemic, wars in Ukraine and Iran, and Donald Trump’s trade battles also cloud the picture. By 2025, Brexit had reduced UK GDP by between 6% and 8%, investment by between 12% and 18%, employment by 3% to 4% and productivity by 3% to 4%, according to Stanford’s Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR).

That report identified four areas that affected the economy: a persistent increase in uncertainty, weighing on investment; lower expected demand for goods and services which affected investment and employment growth; lower innovation and IT investment that eroded productivity growth within companies and reduced productivity growth between firms as the more productive, internationally exposed firms were more negatively impacted.

As well as the hit on the economy, Brexit has wrought havoc with the Conservative Party. Cameron resigned after losing the referendum and was followed by four other Conservative Prime Ministers, one of whom, Liz Truss, lasted 49 days, having triggered a financial market meltdown. The last time the UK burnt through Prime Ministers at a similar rate was in decade-long stretches in the 18^th (1760-70) and 19^th (1827-37) centuries. There were seven Foreign Secretaries and seven Finance Ministers in seven years: just four of the latter in the 23 years before 2016.

As far as Leavers were concerned, Brexit was all about the central slogan of ‘taking back control’, particularly regaining control over the country’s borders. The ending of freedom of movement resulted in more EU citizens leaving the UK than arriving. In order to manage severe labour shortages in sectors such as healthcare and social care the government introduced a points-based system for EU and non-EU citizens alike. This saw net migration (immigration minus emigration) surge to 891,000 in 2022, well above pre-Brexit figures (see Figure 3). There was a big fall in EU net migration and a large increase in net migration from the rest of the world. Tighter requirements brought net migration down to 171,000 in 2025.

Figure 3. Net migration 2014-25 (1)

Had the UK stayed in the EU, theoretically, at least, it might have been possible to control better the small boat crossings from France, which increased significantly after Brexit. More than 200,000 illegal immigrants, many of whom make a claim for asylum, have landed on UK shores, usually in dinghies (see Figure 4). The 2013 Dublin Agreement gave EU countries a legal framework to return asylum seekers to the first EU country they entered, although, in practice, the system’s effectiveness was limited because of strict evidence thresholds and legal challenges. This agreement was replaced by the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation, which was due to come into effect this month.

Figure 4. Immigrants in small boat crossings, 2018-26

‘Global Britain’, the mantra quickly adopted by successive Conservative governments after the referendum and routinely repeated by British diplomats, suggested that the UK would not turn inward and become isolationist but would pursue an outward-looking trade and foreign policy. Yet leaving the EU, the UK’s largest trading bloc, has made ‘Global Britain’ an empty slogan. As a result, it was largely retired by Labour’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy in 2024 and replaced with ‘progressive realism’.

Brexit has diminished the UK’s overall strategic value to the US, as it no longer provides the same leverage within Europe. But by being free from the constraints of EU consensus policy, the UK is now more agile to coordinate specific actions with the US. For instance, the UK was able to take an early and proactive lead in supporting Ukraine against Russia, which was highly valued by Washington.

The impact of the new trade agreements –with New Zealand, Australia, the grouping around the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (with whose members the UK mostly had free-trade agreements), and India (not yet in force)– is judged by the government’s own assessments to be small relative to the negative impact on UK-EU trade. Why would a small exporter who had found a successful niche in the EU go to all the trouble and expense of trying to break into one of these far away non-EU countries? Furthermore, the much-touted UK-US deal, agreed in May 2025, has delivered little in practice so far. As for the currency, the pound has never returned above its pre-Brexit level, hitting British holidaymakers in the pocket. From close to US$1.50 against the US dollar and €1.31 against the euro just after polling closed, pound sterling stands at US$1.34 and €1.16.

Post-Brexit trade with the EU is governed by the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which replaced Single Market and Customs Union membership. This allows for tariff-free and quota-free trade in most goods, but introduced significant non-tariff barriers, such as customs declarations, rules of origin checks, and regulatory divergence. The ending of seamless, frictionless trade created a headache for companies, particularly small firms which have been more adversely affected. An estimated 16,000 to 20,000 small UK businesses have stopped exporting to the EU because of paperwork, VAT issues and the increased cost of logistics (employing people to manage cross-border red tape). Estimates suggest goods trade is 10% to 15% lower than it would have been if the UK had remained in the EU. UK services exports, on the other hand, have done unexpectedly well.

Where does the UK go from here? The Labour government aims to deepen trade and security ties in its reset with the EU but without rejoining the Single Market, the Customs Union or allowing free movement of people. It has agreed to rejoin Erasmus+ from 2027, extended existing fishing rights and allocations for 12 years and entered advanced technical negotiations aimed at a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement to cut export costs and red tape.

The red lines severely constrain what can really be achieved. Brussels is adamant there will be no cherry-picking; it would send the wrong signal to any other EU country thinking of going down the UK’s route. It is a safe bet that Spain will not opt for ‘Sprexit’. Support for the EU remains high (see Figure 5).

Figure 5. Taking everything into account, would you say your country has on balance benefited from being a member of the EU?

The Spain-UK trade relationship has fared reasonably well since Brexit. Spain is the seventh largest trade partner overall. Exports of services rose 51% between 2016 and 2025 from £7.8 billion to £11.8 billion, while goods increased by only 10% to £10.6 billion. Both sides are keen to maximise services through jointly working on mobility (mutual recognition of professional qualifications, short-term business mobility, etc).

Imports of goods from Spain rose 44% to £22.6 billion and services 61% to £23.3 billion. Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo and his counterpart Rachael Reeves chaired the first meeting of the UK-Spain Trade and Investment Dialogue in March. The stock of UK foreign direct investment (FDI) in Spain stood at £87.8 billion in 2024 (latest figure), 6.6% lower than in 2023, and the stock of Spanish FDI in UK was £35.6 billion, 6.1% higher. UK tourists continue to flock to Spain (4.1 million in the first five months, followed by France with 2.2 million), but student numbers are down. Those studying in the UK have roughly halved since 2016-17 to around 6,000 in 2024-25 and Brits in Spain from an estimated 6,000 to 7,000 to 2,000 to 3,000.

Polls show that the pro-Brexit Reform UK would be the largest party if there was a general election today, but short of an overall majority. Whatever the Labour government might be able to achieve by the time of the next election in its EU reset runs the risk of being undone by Reform if it formed the next government or was part of it. All in all, a mess.

La entrada Ten years on from the Brexit referendum: is the UK better off? se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

• Spanish-German relations have weakened as a result of various shocks within the EU, although the friction stems more from the reduction of the old asymmetry than from substantial divergences. Spain’s rebalancing generates reluctance in Berlin and other capitals, but Europe’s challenges require this bilateral tension to be overcome.
• In such a context, we propose two lines of action: grounding common problems in joint proposals for cooperation in priority areas, such as financing, security and defence and foreign policy, and improving interpersonal ties between the Spanish and German populations.
• On joint financing, the debate should focus on European public goods in order to maximise the potential of common funds, promoting specific alliances in areas such as renewables.
• On security and defence, Germany should include Spain in informal arrangements, move towards a bilateral security treaty and explore a joint naval project.
• On foreign policy the proposal is to align risk perceptions, strengthen European economic deterrence, coordinate approaches to Israel and Palestine through each partner’s privileged channels of dialogue, and bring Germany along into the dialogue with the Global South.
• Finally, regarding interpersonal ties, greater cultural and educational exchanges are needed, in the audiovisual field and through the organisation of forums with young leaders from both countries.

Analysis

Introduction

The relationship between Germany and Spain is undoubtedly under strain. The awkward episode that took place during German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s visit to the White House, when Donald Trump scolded Spain in front of the press while Merz remained silent, exposed the lack of harmony between the two countries. The reasons for this asynchrony are partly legitimate. They rest on disagreements over the management of international crises, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the German perception that Spain should ramp up its support for Ukraine, and the many challenges facing the EU at a time characterised by rivalry between the US and China. Added to this is more recent history, which brings back bitter memories in the Spanish imagination of the austerity recipe imposed and promoted by Germany during the Euro Crisis (2010 to 2012), as well as the persistent perception among parts of the German public of Spain as a fiscally irresponsible and undisciplined economy (more than a third of the Germans surveyed in late 2024 found Spain to be a spendthrift country). All this has clouded the relationship between two countries that, in their similarities, may find more common ground than differences.

Spain and Germany face similar challenges, shared by the rest of the Union. Among them, three major blocks stand out: (a) financing needs; (b) defence; and (c) European foreign policy. However, their approach to these challenges and to the measures to address them appears to be very different, giving rise to irritation and obstacles in the relationship’s fluidity. But it is mainly that: appearances. Spain and Germany are not so far apart in most of their positions. What leads to friction is the rebalancing between the countries. After years of behaving as a junior partner, both in the bilateral relationship and within the EU, Spain has gained confidence. Among other aspects, its economic performance and assets stand out in the transition to a decarbonised economy, which have led the current government to turn Spain into an active participant in the European debate, with proposals and objections on the direction of the EU. It is Spain’s more vocal role, which seeks to contribute politically as befits the Union’s fourth-largest economy and the euro area’s growth leader, that generates reluctance. The reduction of asymmetry therefore entails an adjustment in the bilateral relationship.

It is along these lines that an improvement in Spanish-German relations within the EU is proposed. The scale of the challenges makes bilateral cooperation more necessary than ever and requires a variety of perspectives in order to reach common positions that capitalise on the richness of the Union’s strengths. For this reason, improvements are proposed through two channels: first, by grounding the major problems in concrete proposals in priority areas and, secondly, by strengthening interpersonal ties between the two countries.

European public goods and joint financing

In 2020 the EU faced an unprecedented situation in its history: the COVID-19 pandemic. In the face of a crisis that paralysed the global economy, put millions of jobs at risk and generated chain effects that were difficult to predict, the EU chose to issue common debt. The funds from the NextGenerationEU programme have enabled investments in the ecological transition, digitalisation, support for SMEs and other areas, and forced some of its most reluctant Member States to cross the Rubicon of joint debt, with Germany at the forefront.

Six years later, Europe is not facing a single crisis, but a set of overlapping crises of comparable scale. Europe must take responsibility for its own defence and build up the European pillar of NATO, secure its energy supply through decarbonisation, regain economic competitiveness, advance in digitalisation, strengthen its innovation system and adapt to demographic change. All this while 12 of the Union’s 27 Member States have public debt levels above 60% of GDP and 10 have a public deficit of more than 3%.[2] In other words, fiscal space is very limited, which restricts the states’ capacity to allocate public resources to the necessary transformations, either through surpluses or by borrowing sustainably on the market.

This is where one of the key points of friction between Spain and Germany emerges. Spain calls for greater joint European financing to address common challenges. This translates into a much larger EU budget (the Multiannual Financial Framework, or MFF) and progress towards Eurobonds. The First Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of Spain, Carlos Cuerpo, has been very vocal regarding the issuance of Eurobonds. Spain has supported the proposal by Olivier Blanchard and Ángel Ubide to replace part of the debt already issued by Member States with common debt, thereby creating a European debt market. Figures such as Christine Lagarde and Mario Draghi have also supported the creation of a ‘European safe asset’.

Germany and the other frugal Member States, by contrast, remain firmly opposed. Their objections are usually based on three concerns. The first is shared and refers to moral hazard, meaning that common debt could weaken incentives for fiscal discipline at the national level. The second is specific to the German constitutional and political context: Germany is reluctant to accept open-ended fiscal liabilities without clear limits and effective parliamentary control, not least because of a restrictive ruling by the German Constitutional Court. Such legal limitations apply at the German fiscal level and could be overcome through the collection of European own resources, although original and innovative proposals will be needed in the near future to give new momentum to this idea. The third objection to Eurobonds is linked to financial concerns, since markets could treat them as an additional layer of debt rather than as a genuine replacement for national debt, increasing the perceived exposure in more indebted countries. Germany would also have little direct financial incentive to support such a scheme, given that its own borrowing costs are already very low and could rise under a common issuance model. Additionally, Germany and the ‘frugals’ also oppose a larger European budget, as they made clear in their first reactions to the European Commission’s proposal of €1.8 trillion for the 2028 to 2034 period, and to additional own resources to be collected by the European Commission.

In the face of this clash, the proposal is to redirect and anchor the debate in European public goods (EPGs). These are goods for which market supply is insufficient without public intervention, and that must be produced at the European and not at the national or local levels. Doing so minimises the externalities of producing individually, allows economies of scale to be exploited and takes local preferences into account. Working on the basis of these EPGs to overcome financing constraints makes it possible to identify priorities and common objectives, the capacities needed to achieve them and associated plans.

The Commission’s first proposal for the new MFF has been structured along these lines, and this is how it should be deepened. Common European financing should place a particular emphasis on EPGs, making the most of the potential of the funds and avoiding the Europeanisation of national public goods.

EPGs could structure closer alliances around specific public goods and encourage an exchange of best practices based on each country’s strengths. A clear example of synergy can be found in renewable energy. In the first half of 2025 electricity prices in Germany were 47% higher than in Spain, even though in 2024 Germany had twice Spain’s installed renewable capacity and a renewables share one percentage point higher. Germany has a high industrial demand for electricity and a smaller renewable resource supply, which leads to the inclusion of more fossil fuels in the electricity mix and to higher prices. Spain, in turn, has abundant cheap energy, but lacks the interconnections and storage that would give its grid greater export potential. Germany has an interest in the export of Spanish electricity to the rest of the continent, while Spain has an interest in investment in batteries to balance the grid. A stronger commitment to renewables promoted by both countries could mobilise joint investment and political momentum to advance interconnections, which are blocked in France. This would help achieve a significant European public good: greater decarbonisation of the economy through a cheap and abundant energy resource that would give Europe greater energy independence from unpredictable allies.

Security and defence

Another stumbling block in the Spanish-German bilateral relationship lies in defence. This has not always been the case, since both countries have a history of decades of pacifist tradition. Fifteen years ago, only 50% of Germans and 62% of Spaniards surveyed considered force sometimes necessary to maintain world order, but large majorities said it should first have UN approval: 76% in Germany and 72% in Spain. In addition, the German population consistently showcased a greater approval of the use of civilian means over military means in its foreign and security policy between 2016 and 2023.

Security is the European public good par excellence. Until recently, its provision rested on the US security umbrella, but the war in Ukraine has made Europe realise that it cannot depend solely on US deterrence. The withdrawal of financial and military support for Ukraine by the Trump Administration, as well as the President’s threats to leave NATO and to invade Greenland, have forced Europeans to face reality: from now on, our security is ours alone.

For this to be so, Europe must increase its defence spending and develop its own, joint and coordinated capabilities. All this requires, among other things, funds and time. Traditionally, Spain has been one of the NATO countries that has spent the least on defence relative to GDP. Still, its performance has not been very different from Germany’s in relative terms: both Spain and Germany invested 1.1% in 2016, while in 2025 Spain reached 2.1% and Germany only 0.2 percentage points more.

At the Hague summit in June 2025, Donald Trump asked Europe to commit to defence spending of 5% of GDP by 2035 (3.5% for defence and 1.5% for critical infrastructure protection, resilience, industrial base development and so on). Spain, by contrast, stated that its commitment would not exceed 2.1%, which it considered sufficient to meet the agreed-upon NATO target capabilities. This positioned the Spanish government as the counterpoint to the acceptance shown by the rest of Europe and the allies. It also caused misgivings among countries that had indeed increased their defence spending considerably, such as Poland, whose spending accounted for 4.5% of GDP in 2025.

Spanish reluctance to increase defence spending has mainly to do with domestic political considerations and the rationality of spending. It is not necessarily related to a lack of solidarity. This was reflected in the data from June last year, amid the NATO controversy: 42.1% of Spaniards considered the refusal to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP to be correct (almost 12 percentage points more than those who disapproved of the decision), with voters of the current governing coalition showing this attitude more markedly. This contrasts with Spain’s solidarity and commitment to Ukraine. For example, in January 2026, 68.4% of respondents in the barometer of the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (Spain’s public body in charge of conducting social studies) said that they were very or fairly concerned about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while more than a third supported increasing EU financial support for the country. In turn, in March 2026 Spain was the fourth-largest recipient of Ukrainian refugees in the entire Union, although far behind Poland and Germany, who each hosted almost four and five times more refugees, respectively.

Despite these attitudes, there is scepticism over Spain’s actual commitment to solidarity beyond political declarations. Thus, its low defence spending has kept Spain out of some key groupings. A clear example is the E5 group, composed of Germany, France, Italy, Poland and the UK. This group has emerged as the main coordinator of military support for Ukraine and of the reflection on rearmament and the development of joint European capabilities after the White House withdrew its support for Kyiv. Spain was also absent when European leaders travelled to Washington together with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in August last year following the meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska on the future of the war in Ukraine.

In this context, the proposal to improve Spanish-German relations in defence have several aspects. First, Germany should invite Spain to meetings of the ‘minilateral’ formats that are emerging in defence. Specifically, it should promote an expanded E5 that includes Spain (E5+). After all, Spain’s defence budget is the 15^th largest in the world in absolute terms, just behind Poland’s. Spain is therefore a key actor for the discussions taking place within it, particularly on Ukraine. At the same time, Spain must be prepared to participate and fulfil what is expected from its inclusion in terms of political contributions, but also financial and military commitments. A concrete example would be for Spain to deliver full Patriot batteries to Ukraine, instead of only missiles, as it did both in 2024 and 2026.

Secondly, Germany and Spain could work on a bilateral security treaty or agreement. Germany has concluded agreements of this sort in recent months with the UK, Italy and Ukraine, among others. These seek to guarantee cooperation and ‘exchanges in strategic areas of security policy’, as well as the credible and efficient development of coordinated and interoperable defence forces and capabilities. An agreement of this kind would deepen security and defence relations between Spain and Germany.

Third, and in even more concrete terms, cooperation between Spain and Germany is proposed to develop a joint naval project. Germany is already involved in such projects with different European and non-European partners in drones, combat aircraft, land combat systems and helicopters, among others. In the naval field, cross-border cooperation appears to be less intense. This is an opportunity for Spain and Germany, where the former’s naval industrial base could support the latter’s needs, for instance, in seabed surveillance. Such a project could have a very positive impact on Spanish German security and defence relations. In any case, the project should avoid industrial nationalism in defence in order to achieve shared purposes and objectives. Thus, strong cooperation between the two sides should be the basis and precondition of such an endeavour.

Foreign policy

Finally, in foreign policy the last three and a half years have strained Spanish-German bilateral relations for various reasons. This paper addresses two: (a) Europe’s positioning towards the US and China in a context of geopolitical rivalry; and (b) the conflict in the Middle East.

The US was Europe’s almost undisputed ally until Donald Trump arrived at the White House, although previous Administrations had already signalled their strategic shift towards Asia. Even so, the relationship was maintained. Donald Trump’s second term, characterised by greater rhetorical and factual belligerence towards Europe, has included exorbitant tariffs, accusations of a European democratic deficit and a diagnosis of ‘civilisational erasure’, support for far-right parties in national elections, sanctions against former European commissioners and threats to Denmark’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Added to this are the withdrawal of support for Ukraine, the proposal of the Peace Board to replace the UN, and violations of international law in operations in Venezuela and Iran, among other events.

In the face of all this, a consensus on the need for European strategic autonomy, both in defence and in other areas of the economy, has grown. And this autonomy is also with respect to a volatile US. Public perception in Spain and Germany is similar on this point. A recent study by Germany’s Bertelsmann Stiftung reveals that 76% of the German population and 74% of the Spanish population consider that it is time for the EU to follow its own path with respect to the US. Furthermore, 73% of Germans and 59% of Spaniards perceive the US as an unreliable partner. In both cases, Germans have more negative perceptions than Spaniards, but this is not reflected in the positions of their respective governments.

One of the main points of friction between Sánchez and Merz has been the Spanish government’s opposition to Trump’s demands: objecting to defence spending of 5%, to the ‘Riviera of Gaza’, to intervention in Venezuela and preventing the use of US bases in Spain for the Iran war. Germany, for its part, initially opted for ‘appeasement’. This position was shared by other European and global leaders, especially during the first year of Trump’s second term. In recent weeks, however, a slight shift has been observed in the German Chancellor towards a more openly critical position, even speaking of the ‘humiliation’ of the US by Tehran.

The distance between the countries can also be seen in how to deal with China. But on this issue, the differences may be somewhat deeper, since public perceptions in the two states are slightly more divergent. The same Bertelsmann Stiftung study indicates that 74% of the German population views China’s growing influence in the world negatively, while only 51% in Spain responds in the same way. As for whether citizens think their country is dependent on China and are willing to reduce that dependence even if it entails economic costs, the results are closer: 80% of the German population and 72% of the Spanish population respond positively. This may have to do with Germany’s very negative experience in recent years with its dependence on cheap Russian gas. After the recent trauma of extremely high energy prices and the loss of industrial competitiveness, further aggravated by the so called ‘China Shock 2.0’,[3] Germany is wary of replacing one dependence with another, especially in sectors where it has long held a leading position, such as automobiles and machinery.

In contrast, Spain stands out internationally for having raised its profile in its relationship with China, establishing itself as an interlocutor comparable to countries such as France, Germany and Italy. It seeks closer engagement with Beijing insofar as this brings greater investment into the country in strategic sectors for the future competitiveness of Spain and the continent, such as electric vehicles and batteries. Madrid is therefore trying to insert itself into the new global value chains, capitalising on its abundant clean energy, attracting investment that creates local value and modernises the country’s industrial and technological capacity. Politically, a stronger relationship with China is framed within Spain’s strategy of acting as a bridge to the Global South, as will be discussed below.

Both Germany and Spain agree that the tension between the US and China will continue, and that Europe’s interests will always be subordinated to those of the two major superpowers. For this reason, Europe needs greater independence so that it can decide on its own future and not become a bargaining chip or collateral damage in geopolitical competition. That independence must be technological, energy-related, in payment systems, in industrial capacity and so on, but it requires clear and coordinated consensus and strategies. Consequently, greater alignment between the two European countries is needed to strengthen the action of the EU and its position in the world.

Along these lines, two concrete actions are proposed to align risk perceptions and work on a consensus that takes all interests into account. First, exchanges between the National Security Councils of both countries. Spain has had such a body since 2013, while in Germany it is a recent creation (August 2025). Both comprise government ministers relevant to national security and, in the Spanish case, other members of the administration, such as the Secretary of State for Foreign and Global Affairs and the Chief of the Defence Staff. They are responsible for advising the decisions of the Prime Minister or the Chancellor on national security matters, as well as for informing strategies. In this respect, a structured exchange between the two Councils would allow positions to be brought closer together on the basis of a common understanding, the identification of shared and asymmetric risks, sources of vulnerability and strategic interests. Risk perceptions could thus be aligned between the two countries, reaching a more complete understanding of the risks and opportunities represented by actors such as the US, China or Russia.

In addition, a second line of action would consist in promoting the joint design of response packages to external coercion by the great powers. Europe would thus build its own economic deterrence. In a first phase, the exercise would apply both to potential pressures from the US and from China and should be expanded to other jurisdictions in the future. Europe did something similar in the summer of 2025, identifying products for retaliatory tariffs in response to Donald Trump’s threat of 30% tariffs. As a novelty with respect to what was done, the European economic deterrence strategy should take into account cooperation with other middle powers, in line with Mark Carney’s proposal in Davos or by the Geostrategic Europe Taskforce. The aim should be to strengthen deterrence through coordination among a broad group of allied countries that share an interest in greater independence from external pressure.

This exercise must be repeated with different actors in mind. As different authors have argued, Europe must understand what its strengths are, in which aspects of the global economy it is indispensable, and what toolbox it has in order to respond to external coercion.[4] This requires a joint analysis of strengths, interests and available resources to alleviate possible disruptions. In parallel, although with a medium-term horizon, the analysis should extend to the precise identification of the areas in which Europe wants to be independent, moving beyond abstract and undefined debates on sovereignty and grounding them in concrete elements.

Another point of friction in foreign policy is not directly related to the rivalry between the US and China. The situation in the Middle East is an issue where Berlin and Madrid are at odds. It is estimated that Israel’s activity in the region since the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023 has caused the violent death of at least 75,200 civilians in Gaza[5] and 1,029 deaths, 2,786 injuries and more than one million displaced people in Lebanon.[6] On this issue, Spain has also opposed the actions of Netanyahu’s government more directly and condemned them publicly. This has included recognition of the State of Palestine, describing Israel’s action in Gaza as ‘genocide’ and promoting the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, albeit unsuccessfully, among other actions. Germany, for its part, is in a complicated situation because of the weight of history and has been much less direct in its criticism. It has, however, pressed for the entry of humanitarian aid through Rafah, continued to cooperate with UNRWA, halted the export of weapons that could be used in Gaza and voted in favour of sanctions against violent settlers in the EU.

However, there is an opportunity to turn the clash of positions into a strategy. Spain, which supports the Palestinian cause and has the recognition of the Arab world on its side, can exert pressure and act as an interlocutor on one side; Germany, which has better and more fluid relations with Israel, can do the same on the other. Both actors can play their cards and their roles as ‘good cop and bad cop’ on both sides, becoming more directly involved in a stable and lasting resolution of the conflict. This would allow Europe to assert a role in a region where it is largely absent, despite a humanitarian crisis of devastating proportions.

Lastly, one area for additional joint progress is relations with the Global South. Spain has acted as a bridge between Europe and different regions of the world with which it has relatively closer cultural, historical, economic or geographical relations than other European countries. Such is the case of Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa, even though its colonial past has generated animosity in some instances. Taking advantage of such context and comparatively better relations, it is time for Madrid to continue playing that role by involving European partners more directly in relations with the Global South and not merely representing Europe. Therefore, just as Germany is asked to raise Spain’s profile in informal security and defence forums, Spain should do the same with Germany in the Global South. A good opportunity to do so would be the next Ibero-American Summit, to be held in Madrid in November this year.

Interpersonal linkages

In addition to all the substantive and positional clashes observed, there is an underlying trend that makes it harder to improve Spanish-German relations: the two societies do not know each other. A 2025 survey by the Elcano Royal Institute shed light on the image of Germany in Spain. Spaniards have a better perception of Germany than of their own country, but 61% of respondents had never visited it and 85% spoke no German at all. For its part, another barometer conducted at the end of 2024 found that 73% of Germans had visited Spain (and almost a third of them more than four times). At the same time, when Germans were asked what first comes to mind when they think of Spain, more than 90% of the associations had to do with holidays, good weather and food. This suggests that, beyond stereotypes related to tourism, holidays or the habits of each country, there is no deep cultural understanding or dense social fabric.

To address this lack of knowledge, cultural and educational exchanges need to be cultivated, connecting schools, secondary schools and universities to strengthen the relationship. Work can also be done in the audiovisual field. Spain and France regularly cooperate on many co-produced works; France and Germany, for their part, have a very institutionalised and dense cooperation that is clearly exemplified by ARTE, a specifically Franco-German television channel. Therefore, there is room to develop joint productions that make it possible to present each country in greater depth.

The organisation of a Spanish-German young leaders’ forum is also needed. This is common among other pairs of countries, but not between Spain and Germany.[7] It would be a programme that brings together 15 young people from each country annually, led and organised by the respective embassies together with cultural institutions, such as the Cervantes and Goethe Institutes. Participants could undertake cultural and institutional visits, meet other young leaders with whom to create a network, and thus foster the gradual rapprochement of both societies without incurring an exorbitant economic cost. This is a concrete measure that can be implemented quickly and whose medium- and long-term impacts could be notable.

Conclusions

In short, Spain and Germany face common challenges from different positions. But, as this paper has sought to show, the distance between them is less serious than it appears. There is room to work on joint positions within the European framework on the financing of European public goods, security and defence, and various aspects of foreign policy. At a cross-cutting and medium- to long- term level, actions must be taken to foster interpersonal linkages and contact between both cultures, to improve the bilateral understanding between the societies and overcome classic stereotypes.

The set of proposals, however, share an important caveat that needs to be highlighted, as anticipated in the introduction. To a large extent, the tension between the two countries has more to do with the recalibration of the relationship than with irreconcilable positions. Spain has become the growth leader of the euro area while Germany is experiencing lacklustre economic performance; Spain has the renewable resources to lead the energy transition while German industry is losing competitiveness.

In many cases, the positions of the two countries are not opposed or very different from what they were years ago. If anything, on some points they have converged. What has changed is that Spain has partly shed its inferiority complex. Economic figures and the absence of other European leaders in the social-democratic field embolden the current Spanish government to abandon its perception of itself as a junior partner in the relationship. And this has not been well received either in Germany or in other capitals. Nor does it help that the Franco-German axis, the driver of major political projects in Europe, is not working. That tandem has been seized up for years and the international context offers no respite for it to be reestablished. The EU and its Member States must therefore have the flexibility and breadth of vision to accept political initiatives and impulses, even when they come from the periphery. After all, the Union’s motto remains ‘united in diversity’.

[1] This analysis is based on the discussions held during the seminar Germany and Spain in 2026: good relations in challenging times? in April 2026, organised by the German Embassy in Spain.

[2] The figures on public debt and deficit come from the latest Eurostat data update available at the time of writing (22 April 2026). In the case of public debt, the data are still provisional and correspond to the last quarter of 2025; the reported public deficit is for the whole of 2025.

[3] This refers to the shock produced in the global economy by China’s excessive supply of green goods, which is eroding the competitiveness of industry in other countries.

[4] Some of the analyses that develop and detail this idea have been published by Ignacio Álvarez Peralta (part of the Geostrategic Europe Taskforce) at the Elcano Royal Institute, André Sapir, Jacob Funk Kirkegaard and Jeromin Zettelmeyer at Bruegel, and Tobias Goehrke at ECFR (on the US, and on China together with Nina Schmelzer).

[5] The data come from an independent population survey published in The Lancet Global Health. The survey observes population changes between 7 October 2023 and 5 January 2025.

[6] The data come from a report by the United Nations Human Rights Office and cover only the first three weeks of escalation between Israel and Hezbollah from 2 March 2026.

[7] Some examples are the meetings of young leaders from Spain and the US, Germany and Italy, France and the US, and Germany and Israel, among others.

La entrada Bridging asymmetry and friction: proposals to improve Spanish-German relations in the EU se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

• This paper presents the new edition of the Elcano Global Presence Index. The first part analyses the main results for 2025, while the second part contrasts some of the most widespread ideas about globalisation as we know it (1990-2025).
• In 2025 the ranking continues to be led by the US, followed by China. Together with Russia, these are the countries that record the largest increases in global presence compared with the previous year.
• The world is not de-globalising. Although the pace of growth of globalisation is slower, the aggregate values of economic and soft presence are now far higher than those recorded in 1990. This is not the case for the military dimension, which declined during the early 21^st century and has begun to grow again in recent years.
• From a geographical perspective, globalisation is highly concentrated in three major regions: Europe, North America and Asia. These regions have advanced processes of regional integration. By contrast, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East have recorded very low growth, calling into question both the automatic link between globalisation and development and the global spread of globalisation itself.
• The diagnosis differs depending on whether the data are examined in absolute values or as a share of the total. China and the US have gained the most presence, and China’s global share is now higher than that of the former Soviet Union. However, there has also been a redistribution among the middle positions of the ranking in two distinct phases: one up to 2010, reflecting the rise of Europe, and another since then, driven by Asian countries.
• Still, today’s world is less multipolar than often claimed. Groupings of rising powers such as BRICS or the Next-11 have barely increased their relative weight over these decades. Even the gap between the Global North and the Global South, excluding China and the US, would today stand at levels similar to those of the 1990s.

Analysis

Doubts are growing as to whether we currently witness the beginning of a new world order, not only because of the configuration of a new balance of power, but also because of the transformation of the basic parameters of the dominant paradigm. Since the 1990s, globalisation was understood by many as an inevitable and irreversible process within an optimistic narrative, centred on external openness and growing integration as a mechanism of stability and an opportunity for development. It was an apparently ideology-less process, in which geographical borders seemed blurred and gave way to a unified image of the world. Alongside greater economic interdependence, links of a different nature were also taking shape, including cultural, scientific and technological, and interpersonal ties, which seemed to outline a less militarised international order. It was a world in transition from the bipolar logic of the Cold War towards a more multipolar configuration, with a growing number of countries claiming a voice of their own within an increasingly dense network of multilateral institutions and organisations.

Today, however, just over three decades later, the narrative is different. Since the Great Recession, concepts such as de-globalisation, ‘slowbalisation’ and secular stagnation began to spread as ways of describing a scenario marked by the reduced dynamism of international trade and growing geopolitical rivalry. The pandemic, technological tensions between the US and China, and the war in Ukraine fed the idea that globalisation as it had been known until then was being transformed. Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency, and in particular the so called Liberation Day, in a sense represent the beginning of a new era of globalisation marked by growing uncertainty, geographical and geopolitical fragmentation, in which external interdependence may now constitute a strategic vulnerability.

Today’s world is substantially different from that of the 1990s. The narrative of multipolarity that had prevailed for decades, associated with the rise of emerging economies and a greater plurality of actors in multilateral organisations, has been replaced by geopolitical rivalry between the US and China and by a world divided into the categories of Global North and Global South. But have we moved from the bipolarity of the Cold War to a new bipolarity? Are we really de-globalising? Are we entering a new era of globalisation?

To address these questions, we use the Elcano Global Presence Index, an analytical international-relations tool that measures countries’ external projection based on a set of indicators grouped into three dimensions: economic, military and soft. The first part of this paper presents the 2025 results and compares them with the previous year, while the second part examines four widely held narratives about globalisation and its evolution since 1990.

1. Results of the new edition of the Elcano Global Presence Index

The results of the new edition of the Elcano Global Presence Index show a 2025 ranking led by the US and followed by China, Germany, the UK and Japan (Figure 1). In the top 20 positions there is a geographically heterogeneous group of countries: the two North American countries –the US and Canada–; five Asian countries; two Middle Eastern countries –the UAE and Saudi Arabia–; and 11 European countries, four of which are not EU members, namely the UK, Russia, Turkey and Switzerland.

Figure 1. Ranking of the Elcano Global Presence Index, 2025

Figure 2 shows the changes in absolute value compared with the previous year. The first point to note is that the increases are concentrated, in this order, in China, Russia and the US, while the remaining countries record significant losses or only very slight increases in their global presence. China and the US increase mainly as a result of greater economic presence and, to a lesser extent, also greater military presence. However, there is a notable divergence in the evolution of their soft presence: while China continues to increase its soft presence, the US reduces it. The domestic context in the US, changes in migration policies, in the attraction of international students and in development cooperation, among others, are diminishing US soft power. Russia, for its part, records an increase in its global presence explained almost exclusively by the expansion of its military projection, which grows by around 14% compared with the previous year, while its economic presence and soft projection decline.

Among the countries that lose presence in 2025, several European nations stand out, as do other powers from the so-called Global North, such as Japan and Australia. Spain remains in 13^th position, between Italy and Australia, and is one of the few European countries whose global presence does not decline from 2024. Although its growth is very modest, just 0.5 points, Spain has been able to make up for losses in some indicators, such as Manufactures and Culture, with increases in Tourism, Sports and Information, among others. This performance contrasts with that of other EU partners, which show slight declines, such as France and Italy, or more pronounced ones, such as the Netherlands and Germany, mainly weighed down by the fall in their economic presence.

Figure 2. Change from 2024 to 2025 in the leading positions of the Global Presence ranking

2. Globalisation in historical perspective: contrasting narratives

In this section, we propose a historical view of the evolution of globalisation in terms of global presence. To this end, we identify four widely held narratives about globalisation since 1990 and contrast them with the results of the Elcano Global Presence Index.

2.1. Narrative 1: globalisation is decreasing worldwide

One of the most widespread ideas is that, after the globalising euphoria of recent decades, we are now in a period of de-globalisation. As noted in the introduction, there are certainly arguments for this view, and it is not a new diagnosis. However, it is necessary to distinguish changes in normative frameworks from the recorded data. Looking at the aggregate evolution of the Elcano Global Presence Index between 1990 and 2025 (Figure 3), there is no evidence of a process of de-globalisation understood as a sustained reduction in the aggregate world value of the different indicators considered. In fact, the level of global presence in 2025, although slightly below the peak reached in 2023, remains far above the levels recorded in 2010 and, even more so, those of 1990.

Figure 3. Aggregate evolution of the Elcano Global Presence Index, 1990-2025

A more erratic trend can be observed from the Great Recession onwards, as well as a 0.5% decline in the total aggregate in 2025 compared with the previous year. By dimensions, aggregate economic presence contracts by 1.2% and soft presence by 0.1%, while military presence grows by 1.5%, marked by the increase in the number of troops deployed abroad.

This uneven performance across dimensions suggests that, although there has been no substantive reduction in globalisation as a whole, a change in its nature may be underway. Looking at the variation across the different periods in the three dimensions, the shift in pattern becomes apparent.

Figure 4. Rate of change by dimension and period, 1990-2024

In a first stage, and due to the predominantly economic character of globalisation, it was this dimension that historically showed the greatest dynamism, though that was interrupted by the 2010 crisis. Since then, the soft dimension took over as the main driver of growth in global presence, a trend that was then abruptly halted by the pandemic. For its part, the military dimension, which had lost relative weight since the 1990s as a reflection of the demilitarisation of international relations after the Cold War, has regained dynamism in recent years, both because of the increase in deployed troops, largely as a consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and because of the rise in military equipment. In fact, the number of troops deployed in the world today stands at levels similar to those of the 1990s, but the same is not true of military equipment, despite growth in some regions, especially Asia.

2.2. Narrative 2: all regions of the world have increased their external projection

Another widespread idea is that globalisation has generated a generalised increase in the external projection of all regions of the world, implying geographical de-concentration compared with the world of the 1990s. To verify this, we organise the results by geographical regions and examine the aggregate evolution of each region’s global presence both in terms of absolute value and share, that is, the weight of its score within the world total.

Figure 5. Evolution of the value of global presence by region, 1990-2025

Figure 5 shows the evolution of the value of global presence by aggregating the countries that make up each region, which represents the geographical breakdown of Figure 3. The first piece of evidence is the high degree of concentration in Europe, Asia and North America. Not surprisingly, these regions not only concentrate the economies with the highest levels of development but have also been the setting for some of the most intense processes of regional integration, including the EU, USMCA and ASEAN, in which regional integration was largely conceived as an instrument of external competitiveness. Secondly, the evolution since 1990 has also been very uneven across regions. Since then, the increase in global presence in Asia-Pacific has approached 3,500 points, while Europe and North America would have increased by 2,079 and 1,385 points, respectively. By contrast, the increases are much more modest for the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

Figure 6. Evolution of the share of global presence by region, 1990-2025

The uneven increase across regions necessarily entails a geographical reconfiguration of globalisation in terms of share of global presence. Asia practically doubles its share between 1990 and 2025, with a particularly intense acceleration from 2010 onwards. In fact, since then it has overtaken North America, which today records more than 6 percentage points less, whereas in 1990 the difference was more than 10 points in North America’s favour. However, North America’s decline occurred mainly before 2010, after which it remained at relatively stable levels and even recorded occasional increases. By contrast, Europe has experienced a sustained and intense decline precisely since then, although it remains the region with the highest aggregate global presence. The remaining regions remain at significantly lower levels. The Middle East records a slight increase associated mainly with its energy role, while Latin America and Africa reduce their relative weight.

An interpretation of the results in terms of shares leads to a reading in terms of a zero-sum game, while changes in absolute value offer a different interpretation. In any case, the evolution of the results is highly uneven across regions and shows a high concentration in three of them. This connects, on the one hand, with the thesis that the process of globalisation is to a large extent the aggregation of three processes of regionalisation and, on the other, with those perspectives that point to its negative impact, or at least its more limited benefits, in less developed regions.

2.3. Narrative 3: China gains global presence ahead of the US and Europe

Another widespread idea is that China has increased its external projection while the US and a large part of European countries have lost theirs. This perception has gained strength in Western political discourse, particularly among sectors linked to the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement, to the point of considering that the current international economic order harms the US, reflecting a profound shift from the dominant globalising consensus of the 1990s.

Figure 7 shows the main increases and decreases in absolute value between 1990 and 2025. China would have been the country with the largest increase in global presence, but the US would be second. Some distance behind are other Asian economies, such as India, South Korea and Japan, reflecting that shift of the axis of the world economy towards Asia. Among European countries, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands would also have recorded increases, together with Ireland, Spain and Switzerland, although more moderate than those of the Asian countries. The United Arab Emirates also appears, standing out among the countries of its region, as does Canada within the process of regional integration in North America. Of the 150 countries for which we calculate the Index, only 13 would today have less global presence than in 1990. The most significant case is Russia, which today would not reach the values recorded by the former USSR.

Figure 7. Main increases and decreases in global presence, 1990 to 2025, absolute value

Most countries have increased their global presence, but in a highly uneven way, with the US and China, and to a lesser extent other Asian and European countries, recording the largest increases. This uneven evolution in absolute value obviously modifies the shares of global presence. The US went from 23.8% in 1990 to 19.5% in 2025, while China moved from 2.5% to 11.6% over the same period. European countries record a more moderate increase, but the EU also shows a sustained loss of presence in the rest of the world, that is, considering only its external projection once intra-EU links are excluded. Since 2005 the EU had maintained a level of global presence higher than that of the US. However, from 2020 onwards a significant fall can be observed, coinciding with the impact of Brexit and the pandemic. This does not mean that the loss of EU presence is due to the departure of the UK, which has even lost more presence since then, but rather to the lower dynamism of large economies such as Germany and France. As a result, in 2025 the US surpasses the value of the EU’s global presence for the first time in the series.

Figure 8. Evolution of the share of global presence of the US, China and the EU, 2005-25

2.4. Narrative 4: we have moved from the bipolarity of the Cold War, between the US and the USSR, to a multipolar world, now replaced by a new bipolarity between the US and China

To contrast this idea, we use, first, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index for the 150 countries of the world, whose decline would indicate de-concentration towards a more multipolar world. Secondly, we aggregate the countries currently considered part of the Global North and the Global South, but excluding the US and China, with the aim of determining whether, beyond the dynamic of the two great powers, convergence is taking place between the rest of the countries. Finally, we revisit two categories widely used to refer to emerging countries: BRICS and the Next-11.

What can be observed is a general trend towards de-concentration of global presence in the world until the early 2010s, reflecting greater multipolarity, and a certain reversal of this trend since then, but not quite returning to the levels of the 1990s. At that time, six countries recorded a share of presence above 5%: the US, the USSR, Germany, the UK, France and Japan, whereas in 2025 only the US, China and Germany exceed that threshold. It is true that China’s share today exceeds that of the USSR in 1990, 11.6% and 8.2% respectively, but there has also been a redistribution across different segments of the ranking. In 1990 the top 20 countries accumulated more than 82% of the world aggregate of global presence, compared with 78% in 2025. The remaining 130 countries for which the Index is calculated would have gained only 4 percentage points of global share over 35 years.

Figure 9. Evolution of the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index by dimensions of global presence, 1990-2025

This dynamic of de-concentration has been particularly driven by the economic dimension, in line with a period of high productive transnationalisation and industrialisation of peripheral countries, with the consequent increase in productive and financial links in the world economy. By contrast, the military dimension shows higher levels of concentration, as it is dominated by a very small number of powers. Between the two lies the soft dimension, which shows a tendency towards some concentration since 2000. This would be compatible with a growing concentration of scientific and technological capacities in a few countries, while other indicators within this dimension, such as tourism and sports, may be becoming more dispersed. Taken together, the results suggest that globalisation has dispersed global presence above all in the economic sphere, but much less so in the military and soft dimensions, giving rise in any case to an asymmetric multipolarity.

From another perspective, the analysis of multipolarity requires important nuances. Figure 10 shows the aggregate evolution of the global presence of the Global North and the Global South, but without considering the US and China, with the aim of interpreting the evolution of the remaining countries without the distortion generated by the two great powers.

Figure 10. Aggregate evolution of the value of presence of the Global North and Global South, excluding the US and China, 1990-2025

The results show a widening of the gap between both groupings until 2010 and a notable reduction since then, although interrupted by the pandemic. But the difference between the Global North and the Global South, excluding China and the US, is today greater than it was in 1990. The explanation for this counterintuitive result lies precisely in the performance of European countries, with marked growth until the Great Recession, replaced since then by Asian countries, but not by other emerging regions. According to these results, the world of 2010 was less multipolar than the prevailing narrative suggested.

During that period, a series of labels became popular in the financial world to identify emerging countries, such as BRICS or Next-11, which would group Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Turkey and Vietnam. Looking at the evolution of the results for these groupings, a very timid growth in their share of global presence can be observed. The share of global presence of the BRICS, excluding China, increases from 2010 onwards, falls back in the following years and expands strongly again after the pandemic. Even so, since 1990 the accumulated increase barely reaches two percentage points, and one percentage point in the case of the Next-11.

Figure 11. Evolution of the share of global presence of the BRICS, excluding China, and the Next-11, 2000-24

Conclusions

Faced with the question of whether we are already in a new world order, the first answer is probably not yet, but the world is clearly moving towards something different from what we had known until now. Globalisation, as a historical process, is path-dependent and is also irreversible, but in the sense that the alteration of existing consensuses does not imply a return to the initial point before them but rather configures a new starting point. The historical cycle that began in the 1990s seems to have come to an end, undoubtedly changing the paradigm of globalisation.

In this respect, 2025 ended with a global presence ranking led by the US, with China still at a considerable distance, and with European countries still notably present in the top positions. Compared with the previous year, increases were concentrated, in this order, in China, Russia and the US, while the remaining countries recorded significant losses or only very slight increases. Spain remains in 13^th position and, although with very modest growth, is one of the few European countries that does not see the value of its presence decline compared with the previous year.

But the world does not appear to be experiencing less globalisation in absolute terms, but rather a change both in the intensity and in the nature of the process and in its geographical configuration. The data therefore point not to de facto deglobalisation, compatible with growing institutional and normative fragmentation, but to a transformation that has already been perceptible since the crisis of 2010. This is a globalisation with lower economic dynamism, increasingly driven first by the soft dimension and, more recently, by the military dimension.

From a geographical point of view, not all regions have experienced the same trend over the past decades. While Asian countries have notably increased their external projection, this has slowed down for traditional Western powers, particularly European countries since the Great Recession. But it remains a process highly concentrated in three large regions: Europe, North America and Asia, precisely the spaces that have developed the most advanced processes of regional integration. The remaining regions, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, have instead recorded very low growth in their global presence, calling into question the dynamic between globalisation and development as well as the very spread of globalisation. In a sense, part of what has been called globalisation should be called regionalisation, as the aggregation of articulations within large blocs.

The greater dynamism of Asia, and particularly of China, has implied a profound reconfiguration of the geographical distribution of global presence, altering the relative balances that had existed since the end of the Cold War. However, in absolute value, the US is, after China, the country that has most increased its presence since the 1990s, which has enabled it to sustain a high share that has also grown in recent years. These results point to a certain inconsistency in the Trumpist MAGA discourse, since rather than a loss of relevance of the US, we have witnessed the consolidation of China, a country of 1.5 billion inhabitants –more than 17% of the world total–, which has experienced remarkable development during the period. Therefore, this geographical reconfiguration should not be interpreted in terms of a zero-sum game, but rather as the result of the incorporation of new large powers into the world economy.

The decline is clearer in the European case, both in the external projection of the EU and in that of its member states. The growth of its global presence was interrupted in 2010 and has fallen steadily, coinciding with the departure of the UK. In fact, in 2025 the US surpassed the value of the EU’s global presence for the first time in the series.

In light of the global presence data, the world is less multipolar than is often claimed. Groupings such as BRICS or Next-11 have barely increased their relative weight over these decades, and even the Global North and Global South gap would today stand at levels similar to those of the 1990s. There is indeed a transition from the bipolarity of the 1990s towards a more geographically deconcentrated world, driven by the rise of the EU until 2010 and, subsequently, by the strong growth of China. But there is also no clear trend towards a new bipolarity because, alongside China’s rise and the existence of the EU, there has also been a redistribution across the middle positions of the ranking in two distinct phases, one up to 2010 reflecting the European rise, and another since then driven by Asian countries. In a sense, over these decades multipolarity would have been more represented in the normative sphere than supported by tangible results.

But beyond the results, what has already changed is the narrative about globalisation. The Western vision now coexists with other perspectives that question the consensus of recent decades and suggest that, rather than witnessing the end of globalisation, we are witnessing the exhaustion of a particular way of understanding the world. No one knows with certainty whether we have already entered a new order or whether we remain in that chiaroscuro where monsters emerge. What does seem clear is that the disappearance of a consensus opens a period of uncertainty in which the rules, the protagonists and, ultimately, the future course of globalisation will be redefined.

La entrada Between narratives and a new account of globalisation: analysis of the results of the 2026 edition of the Elcano Global Presence Index se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

• South-East Asia is emerging as an increasingly important hub in global critical mineral supply chains. The region sees these resources as drivers of development and economic transformation, whilst also offering a source of strategic leverage.
• Governments are turning to a mix of restrictive measures and incentives to capture value from the rising demand for critical minerals, while strengthening long-term resilience. At the ASEAN level, there is a growing push to strengthen coordination, align policy frameworks and harness the region’s collective weight.
• International engagement is increasingly oriented towards diversification. The region is actively pursuing partnerships with external actors, while capitalising on current demand and competition to position itself as a key enabler of supply chain resilience.
• There is an asymmetry between South-East Asia’s growing strategic relevance and the level of EU policy attention, despite signs of increasing interest. There is scope to align EU priorities with regional agendas through a more structured approach at both the national and regional levels.

Analysis

ASEAN is becoming a key player in the emerging politics of critical minerals. The region accounts for around 26% of global exports and holds particularly dominant positions in minerals linked to the energy transition. Indonesia and the Philippines together produce approximately 72% of global nickel and 14% of global cobalt output. In bauxite, Indonesia and Vietnam account for a relatively modest 3% of output but hold 20% of the world’s reserves.

The region’s importance is also becoming increasingly pronounced in rare earths. Myanmar has rapidly expanded its role, increasing its share of global production from just 0.2% to 16% in the last decade and supplying roughly 45% of key heavy rare earths such as dysprosium and terbium. Vietnam holds the world’s sixth-largest reserves, while Malaysia, despite limited mine production, has emerged as a key processing hub through the Lynas facility, which sources feedstock from Australia. Estimates of Malaysia’s role vary from around 11% of total rare earth processing in government assessments to about 4% of refined magnet rare earths according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The IEA also identifies the country as one of the fastest-growing players in this segment, with the potential to reach 9% of global output within five years. Continued investments in mining and processing, alongside a stronger industrial policy focus on the energy and digital transitions, underscore South-East Asia’s increasing importance.

As demand grows and critical minerals move to the centre of geopolitical competition, the region increasingly aims to position itself as a prominent actor in this domain. Approaches and levels of engagement vary widely, ranging from conflict-driven and largely unregulated contexts such as Myanmar to interventionist models such as Indonesia. Among the more active players, recent policy trajectories point to a deliberate effort to leverage the growing demand for critical minerals in support of broader economic and strategic objectives. National efforts are reinforced by ASEAN-wide initiatives to enhance policy coherence while projecting the region as a reliable partner for supply-chain diversification. Overall, this forms part of ASEAN’s renewed geoeconomic focus, formalised through the 2025 Geoeconomic Task Force and its upcoming institutionalisation into a permanent structure to advance resilience and a more effective use of regional assets.

Against this backdrop, this paper examines the rise of critical minerals as a policy priority in South-East Asia, unravels recent developments at both national and ASEAN levels, and assesses the growing role of these resources in the region’s diplomatic agenda. It concludes by evaluating the scope for EU engagement with South-East Asia, highlighting the case for more structured cooperation.

Opportunity and vulnerability in South-East Asia’s critical minerals sector

In South-East Asia critical minerals are generally framed as a source of strength, offering opportunities for industrialisation and geopolitical leverage. Although mining is not new to the region, the sector is experiencing a renewed momentum, supported by projections that identify it as one of the main drivers of growth, with an estimated market value of US$110 billion by 2040. This optimism is reflected in political discourse, which increasingly portrays critical minerals as an important pillar of national development, anchoring long-term economic transformation. Across the region, and especially in Indonesia, this is accompanied by an assertive rejection of the traditional model centred on the extraction and export of low-value raw ores and by a push to retain more value domestically through processing, refining and the export of higher-value mineral products such as ferronickel, nickel matte and battery-grade inputs. This reflects a renewed determination to move beyond a longstanding pattern of structural inequality in which resource-rich countries capture only a limited share of the value generated by their mineral endowment.

Alongside this development narrative, the geopolitical dimension is increasingly central in regional discourse, though not necessarily perceived negatively. Current disruptions in global supply chains are seen, if effectively leveraged, as a potential accelerator of economic and industrial objectives. In this context, South-East Asian countries are seeking to capitalise on the intensifying global competition over critical minerals by positioning themselves as key partners in supply and processing, as well as hubs for advanced manufacturing. This framing has been echoed at the ASEAN level, where leaders have described the evolving context as providing an opportunity to enhance the region’s political relevance and role as an ‘enabler of supply chain diversification’. At the same time, critical minerals are increasingly understood as a potential source of bargaining power vis-à-vis major partners, including in trade negotiations. The 2025 ASEAN Geoeconomics Report stresses the need to adapt to the more strategic use of economic tools by external powers, while leveraging ASEAN’s own strengths in niche areas such as critical minerals.

This overall sense of opportunity has been tempered by a more cautionary rhetoric. In Indonesia, President Subianto warned that the country’s vast resources can be a ‘curse’ if not managed well, as external actors will inevitably seek to secure access, leaving resource-rich nations potentially undermined. More broadly, there is an awareness of the region’s structural constraints, including limited processing capacity, technological gaps and shortages in human capital, which may hinder its ability to harness its resource potential. Together, this dual perception of opportunity and risk underpins regional strategies aimed at maximising value capture while tightening oversight of the sector, alongside a more active engagement with external actors to advance domestic capacity.

Towards upgrading in global value chains

Critical minerals governance in South-East Asia is increasingly oriented towards greater oversight and value retention. Within ASEAN, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and, to a lesser extent, the Philippines stand out for their proactive approaches, although national strategies differ in pace and intensity. In recent years, these countries have expanded their regulations, combining restrictive measures and incentives. Initiatives include export restrictions aimed at encouraging domestic processing, sectoral roadmaps, targeted incentives to attract investment in higher-value activities and improved governance and oversight mechanisms.

One of the clearest expressions of this shift towards value addition has been the use of export restrictions to encourage domestic processing. Indonesia has built on earlier export restrictions introduced by banning unprocessed nickel and bauxite in 2020 and 2023, while Malaysia and Vietnam have more recently introduced bans on raw rare earths. These measures have been accompanied by a broader wave of new policies, reforms and investment promotion efforts. By contrast, the Philippines has adopted a more cautious approach. After lifting two moratoriums to revive the mining industry in 2021, Manila ultimately abandoned proposals for an ore export ban last year, instead relying on tax incentives and royalty adjustments to attract investment, support exploration and technological upgrading, and increase revenues.

Beyond trade restrictions, broader efforts to develop the sector have also involved measures to strengthen strategic planning and institutional oversight. Various countries in the region have recently updated their national mining strategies and some have also introduced critical mineral classifications to guide policy priorities. In some cases, particularly in Indonesia, this has been coupled with measures to consolidate the central government’s control and oversight, including through licensing centralisation, the introduction of traceability mechanisms, and the creation in 2025 of a dedicated Mineral Industry Agency to support research and technology transfers. These developments reflect the sector’s rising strategic importance, including its implications for technological and defense self-reliance, as illustrated by discussions in Vietnam about reserving specific deposits for defence and security purposes.

As part of the broader push on critical minerals, rare earths have taken on a particular prominence, prompting more targeted efforts to develop the sector. In Malaysia, earlier initiatives such as its 2014 blueprint for rare earth-based industries have been reinvigorated through resource assessment efforts and a dedicated business model for the sector. More recent developments in Vietnam and Indonesia point to growing efforts to strengthen state capacity around the governance and development of rare-earth resources. In Vietnam the emphasis has been on planning and oversight, with last year’s legal amendments to strengthen state authority over rare earths now coupled with efforts to develop a dedicated agency and a national strategy. Indonesia has recently moved more directly towards resource development through the creation of a state-owned enterprise for mining rare earths, alongside the identification of priority mining areas and the launch of new research initiatives.

More broadly, critical minerals are increasingly being mobilised in support of industrial upgrading and the development of domestic technological capabilities. Across the region, governments are seeking to link resource extraction more closely to higher value industrial activities. This ambition is reflected in initiatives such as Malaysia’s ‘mine to magnet’ approach, its roadmap for advanced materials as well as its Industrial Masterplan. In Vietnam these efforts are tied to a renewed focus on science and technology under President To Lam, with rare earths identified as a strategic technology priority for supporting key industries such as semiconductors. Within Indonesia’s downstreaming agenda, a central priority has been the development of an integrated electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem, supported by measures promoting domestic utilisation of critical minerals and the creation of a new sovereign wealth fund to finance critical industries.

National efforts are increasingly complemented by a more integrated regional approach. While regional cooperation on mining has been institutionalised since 2005 through regular sectoral dialogues and action plans, it has recently gained renewed momentum. ASEAN has positioned sustainable minerals development as a pillar of its economic agenda while seeking to strengthen the region’s role in global value chains. These priorities are reflected in the ASEAN Minerals Development Vision, adopted in 2025, which sets out a broad 20-year roadmap for the sector.

Recent initiatives reflect two core objectives: (a) to increase ASEAN’s attractiveness as an investment hub through practical facilitation tools, including better data quality and availability and the establishment of new platforms to promote investment and public-private dialogue; and (b) to strengthen regional coordination and coherence, while ensuring sustainability, notably through efforts to establish a common framework for responsible exploration, extraction and processing. The development of a regional roadmap for critical minerals, to be finalised this year, further signals ASEAN’s intent to strengthen its collective positioning and adopt a more strategic approach. Overall, these initiatives reflect sustained political attention, alongside a clearer shift towards more comprehensive and aligned policy frameworks. However, their effectiveness will depend on the extent to which diverse national interests and uneven levels of development can be reconciled into more coherent and coordinated approaches.

Managing risk and opportunity in an increasingly contested geopolitical landscape

Given the region’s structural constraints, cooperation with external partners is understood as central to South-East Asia’s strategies at the national and ASEAN levels. Critical minerals are increasingly embedded in the region’s diplomatic agenda, with a focus on advancing joint research, facilitating technology transfer and promoting a more sustainable mineral development, including through policy alignment and knowledge exchange.

These efforts unfold in a complex geopolitical environment shaped by China’s central role in critical mineral value chains, its readiness to weaponise dependencies and parallel efforts to reduce this exposure. South-East Asia’s approach is largely pragmatic, based on the perception that strategic autonomy ultimately hinges on advanced technology and expertise, making partnerships with external actors, including China, necessary. Countries like Vietnam are therefore actively pitching collaboration to Beijing in minerals research and technology transfer, while Indonesia’s recent high-level interactions with China have resulted in more structured cooperation frameworks on minerals. Active engagement is also reflected in ongoing discussions between Chinese firms and partners in Vietnam and Malaysia, including over access to rare earths processing technologies.

At the same time, there is growing awareness within ASEAN of the risks associated with dependence, particularly amid an increasing scrutiny of China’s role in mineral supply chains. The region’s critical minerals exports remain heavily oriented towards the country, which absorbs 75% of the total. The Indonesian case further exposes structural dependence on China. Efforts to localise processing have significantly increased the country’s share of nickel production, but this expansion has relied heavily on Chinese-led projects. According to the IEA, companies from China control around 40% of nickel production, compared with roughly 10% for Indonesian firms. Similarly, while refined nickel supply is geographically concentrated in Indonesia, 75% of its refining capacity is estimated to be Chinese-owned. This concentration could increase Indonesia’s exposure to geopolitical pressures, potentially complicating diversification efforts in a more contested geopolitical environment, a risk that has already raised concerns in Jakarta.

In this context, efforts to cooperate with the US have become more visible, accelerating during the Trump Administration. This has translated into dedicated cooperation frameworks with ASEAN countries and their participation in initiatives such as the Critical Minerals Ministerial in February 2026. Critical minerals also featured in the region’s Agreements on Reciprocal Trade (ARTs), especially with Indonesia, where the issue is addressed in a dedicated section. The Philippines has been particularly active in pursuing an engagement with the US, while positioning itself as an alternative to China-dominated supply chains, in line with its broader push to strengthen its alliance with Washington amid growing tensions with Beijing. In April 2026 Washington and Manila agreed on an Economic Security Zone, a 4,000-acre high-tech industrial hub established under the Pax Silica alliance, which intends to leverage on mineral resources and advance technological manufacturing. Yet even in this case, the Philippines remain dependent on the Chinese market, which absorbs around 90% of its nickel exports and, despite its rhetoric, Manila has also continued to seek Chinese investment in the mining sector, including in nickel and copper.

The growing centrality of critical minerals in Washington’s engagement with South-East Asia reflects both their prioritisation in US foreign policy and the region’s efforts to strengthen and diversify partnerships. Recent agreements with the US are viewed as recognition of the region’s successful positioning amid global competition, while supporting domestic objectives to build capacity and capture greater value. However, they also highlight the sector’s increasing sensitivity. In Malaysia and Indonesia the ARTs with the US drew criticism over provisions perceived as limiting these countries’ ability to impose export restrictions on unprocessed minerals. While both governments rejected these claims, the debate underlined the importance of maintaining a balanced approach to the US and China to preserve their credibility and ensure the sustainability of their strategies.

To mitigate the geopolitical backlash, individual countries and ASEAN are expanding their international engagement on critical minerals with partners such as Japan, Korea and Australia. This issue is increasingly embedded in broader frameworks and complemented by targeted MoUs covering areas like technical cooperation, rare earths and EV value chains. In parallel, more structured cooperation mechanisms are also emerging, including dedicated dialogues and, in the case of Korea and Vietnam, the establishment of a joint Critical Minerals Supply Chain Center.

At the regional level, critical minerals are also increasingly identified as a priority sector in ASEAN’s external relations, with a strong focus on capacity-building and support for ASEAN-led initiatives. Commitments to cooperate are reflected in Plans of Action and joint declarations, including dedicated sections in the frameworks with China, Australia, Japan and Korea. More targeted initiatives have emerged within the ASEAN+3 framework, encompassing China, Japan and Korea, which has developed a clearer roadmap for cooperation in the mining sector. These countries have also shown more active efforts to engage ASEAN as a whole, including through targeted projects such as Korea’s US$5 million critical minerals initiative focused on capacity-building, training and database development.

This political dynamism is mirrored by increased private-sector activity across the value chain. In Malaysia, Lynas has renewed its operating licence for 10 years, and is expanding its footprint through investments in a new rare earth separation facility and a US$142 million super magnet manufacturing project with Korea’s JS Link. While still sourcing feedstock from Australia, Lynas recently reached an MoU with the Kelantan regional government to develop local processing of rare earth deposits. Vietnam has similarly attracted growing interest from international investors in rare earths, with new processing projects, including by Korea’s LS and Lynas, and increased investment to expand the capacity of existing plants. In Indonesia, investment has been particularly pronounced in downstreaming, with a nearly US$6 billion EV battery industry ecosystem launched in 2025 by a consortium of Indonesian and Chinese companies, followed by an additional project expected in the coming months.

Figure 1. Frameworks of critical minerals with selected partners
● Explicit critical minerals agreement or cooperation framework
○ Critical minerals included within broader bilateral or multilateral declarations

Prospects for EU-ASEAN cooperation on critical minerals

South-East Asia’s resource base and policy trajectory point to growing strategic importance and a stronger ambition to position the region as a key player in critical minerals. In parallel, this issue has also moved to the centre of the EU’s economic security agenda, with a focus on securing resilient supply chains. Partnerships have become a key component of this approach. In Asia-Pacific this has translated into cooperation with countries like Australia, Japan and Korea. Yet the presence of ASEAN and individual South-East Asian countries in the EU’s raw materials diplomacy has been limited.

This gap partly reflects frictions around this issue, rooted in differing conceptions of critical minerals, as a vehicle for development and industrialisation in ASEAN and as a matter of supply security for the EU. Recent developments, however, point to a degree of pragmatic adjustment in how these differences are managed. Indonesia’s nickel export ban strained relations, leading to a WTO dispute. Despite a favourable WTO ruling, which Indonesia subsequently appealed, Brussels ultimately chose to prioritise continued engagement through Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) negotiations. Commission President von der Leyen presented the CEPA as supporting diversification and a more stable and predictable supply of critical raw materials. This forms part of the EU’s broader effort to incorporate raw materials into its trade agreements, an approach that is also being pursued in ongoing FTA negotiations with Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.

Beyond these frameworks, there is scope to broaden the EU’s engagement in ways that align its economic security approach more closely with South-East Asian priorities at both bilateral and regional levels. This entails an agenda that goes beyond a narrow focus on access to minerals towards cooperation on governance, sustainability and support for the region’s cababilities. At the bilateral level this could involve expanding critical raw materials diplomacy to develop partnerships with key producing countries in South-East Asia. More sustained engagement could enhance transparency and predictability, particularly given the region’s increasing relevance for global supply chains. As the IEA notes, developments in countries such as Indonesia have significant implications for the supply and prices of key critical minerals.

During von der Leyen’s visit to the Philippines in 2023, the Commission President proposed actions to develop the country’s mining industry, focusing not only on extraction but on technology transfer, knowledge exchange and supply chain security. This approach, grounded on the development of domestic capabilities, is broadly consistent with the region’s priorities and is beginning to translate into concrete cooperation. In 2025 the EU and the Philippines announced a scoping study to identify potential critical minerals, promote best practices and attract European investment. Similarly, the 2026 joint statement upgrading EU-Vietnam relations to the level of Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) reflected shared interest in critical raw materials, including by promoting trade and investment as well as sustainable mining and processing. Continuing along this line of engagement, which refrains from an overly geopolitical framing, is likely to resonate better with the region. South-East Asian countries remain generally cautious towards frameworks perceived as signalling alignment. Although this sensitivity may be diminishing, as suggested by broader participation in the 2026 US ministerial than in earlier initiatives, concerns about being drawn into wider geopolitical competition remain.

At the regional level, ASEAN also offers a useful framework to structure and maximise EU efforts. Mining has been part of the ASEAN agenda for over two decades, allowing the organisation to act as a facilitator for cooperation with external partners. The current EU-ASEAN Plan of Action (2023-27) briefly mentions cooperation on supply chain resilience in critical raw materials and both sides have further identified this issue, alongside digital trade and green technologies, as priority areas for engagement. However, joint activity in the critical minerals sector has so far remained underdeveloped, despite growing dynamism on both sides. More explicit attention to the sector emerged in the EU-ASEAN joint statement of April 2026, where ministers expressed a clearer interest in advancing meaningful cooperation in minerals development. There is now scope to build on this commitment, particularly in light of ongoing work to update the Plan of Action and efforts to upgrade relations to the level of CSP in 2027.

ASEAN has identified a range of priority areas for engagement with external partners, providing a basis to explore synergies and guide future joint initiatives. A 2022 report by the ASEAN Secretariat identified EU projects of interest to ASEAN, including PanAfGeo programme, focused on technical training and improving geological knowledge in Africa and the EU-Latin America Mineral Development Network Platform, designed to facilitate information sharing, dialogue and the promotion of sustainability standards. Similarly, ASEAN’s current Minerals Cooperation Action Plan identifies areas for engagement with external partners, including investment facilitation, the use of innovative mining technologies, the implementation and monitoring of sustainability frameworks, and the exchange of best practices in governance, including in emerging areas such as offshore and deep-sea mining. Taken together, these priorities point to convergence between ASEAN’s interests and the EU’s initiatives, providing a basis for future cooperation.

Building on this convergence will require the EU to position itself clearly in an increasingly crowded landscape, marked by growing engagement from a wide range of external actors. This increases the importance to demonstrate tangible added value, especially given the region’s perceptions that earlier promises have not been fully met. The Global Gateway, which was precisely intended to showcase the EU’s capacity to mobilise resources, has often been perceived in South-East Asia as overpromising and underdelivering. To be seen as a relevant partner, the EU will therefore need to show consistency and a willingness to put resources behind its offer, including through financing and investment.

Moreover, in supporting regional efforts, the EU can also draw on relevant expertise in critical minerals, including its experience in developing region-wide frameworks for the sector, an area that also aligns with its longstanding record of supporting ASEAN regulatory and institutional development. It also has technical capabilities that could support the the region’s efforts more directly. One example is the Copernicus for Earth observation, where cooperation initially developed with the Philippines is now being expanded to the wider region. Pilot projects using Copernicus data in Europe illustrate its potential to support environmental monitoring of mining activities, faster and more cost-efficient mineral mapping and exploration, as well as risk mitigation and infrastructure maintenance. More tailored forms of technical cooperation and training in these areas could help leverage EU capabilities while supporting regional priorities in the mining sector.

Conclusions

South-East Asia’s approach to critical minerals reflects a growing dynamism across the value chain and a clearer ambition to strengthen its strategic positioning. However, it is still unclear whether current policy efforts can effectively address structural constraints and unlock the region’s resource potential. Likewise, ASEAN’s ability to exercise collective weight will depend on its capacity to reconcile diverse interests and uneven levels of engagement in the sector. Despite these challenges, the evolving landscape creates a scope for more structured and sustained EU-ASEAN cooperation. Aligning EU engagement with regional development priorities will be key to positioning the EU more effectively in a region of increasing strategic importance.

[1] The autor would like to thank Mario Esteban and Judith Arnal for their comments, which have substantially improved the analysis.

La entrada Navigating development and geopolitics: ASEAN’s approach to critical minerals and prospects for cooperation with the EU se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

Elections in Extremadura (last December), Castile and León (March), Aragón (March) and Andalusia (May), all of them regions already governed by the PP, saw the party hold onto its position, with varying degrees of success.

In Extremadura the PP won one more seat and after four months of on-off negotiations –with the possibility of having to hold the elections again–, agreed to form another coalition government with the populist anti-immigration party VOX (see Figure 1). VOX, which left the government in 2024 over immigration policy differences, as it did in Castile and León and Aragón for the same reason, won six more seats. The election in Extremadura was held two years in advance because the government was unable to obtain sufficient support for its 2026 budget.

The price of VOX’s support in all four regions was acceptance of its policy of giving priority to Spaniards over immigrants in areas such as housing and social spending. VOX railed against the central government’s ongoing amnesty for at least 500,000 undocumented migrants. Depending on how this policy is implemented, the Socialist-led minority coalition government, in power since 2018, could challenge it as unconstitutional in the courts.

Figure 1. Results of main parties in Extremadura’s elections, seats and % of votes

In Castile and León, the PP captured two more seats and was finalising a new coalition with Vox, which added one seat in the region’s parliament to its tally in 2022 (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Results of main parties in Castile and León’s elections, seats and % of votes

The PP lost two seats in Aragón, where a snap election was also held for the same reason as in Extremadura (see Figure 3). The party struck a new deal with VOX.

Figure 3. Results of main parties in Aragón’s elections, seats and % of votes

Lastly, in Andalusia, the most populous region and larger than the combined territory of Belgium and the Netherlands, the PP is still the main party, but it lost five seats and thus its absolute majority in the 109-seat parliament. It will have to govern with the direct or indirect support of VOX unless it can strike a deal with another party (see Figure 1). The Socialists, who ruled the region between 1978 and 2019, suffered their worst result ever in what was their fiefdom. They secured 22.7% of the vote, about half that in the 2000s. Vox is pushing its ‘national priority’ policy as part of any deal with the PP.

Figure 4. Results of main parties in Andalusia’s elections, seats and % of votes

The rightward shift was most evident in Extremadura where the combined votes of the PP and VOX (60.1%) was 13.2 percentage points higher, followed by Castille-León (54.4%, +5.5 pp) and Aragón (52.1%, +4.4 pp). The only exception was in Andalusia (55.4%, -2.2 pp), the last test before the next general election. VOX is making inroads into PP voters, as well as young adults voting for the first time.

Regional parties (ie, those that do not field candidates throughout Spain) are gaining importance. The Chunta Aragonesa won six seats, three more, and the left-wing Adelante Andalucía eight (+6), snatching votes from the Socialists.

Support for the left, based on the combined votes of the Socialists and the hard-left Sumar and its allies, which form the central government, dropped in all four elections: in Extremadura from 45.9% of the votes to 36%; in Castille-León from 35.1% to 32.9%; in Aragón from 32.4% to 27.2%; and in Andalusia from 31.8% to 29%.

While the PP is convinced the results put it clearly on the path to power at the central government level, the Socialists are much more cautious in extrapolating the outcome of these four regional elections. They point out, for example, that they won 577,000 more votes in Andalusia in the July 2023 general election than in the June 2022 regional election.

Polls for a general election also put the PP, VOX and Se Acabó la Fiesta (SALF), another hard-right party founded in 2024, well ahead of the Socialists, Sumar and Podemos (which split from Sumar and went solo in December 2023) by 14 pp (51% vs 37%). If this proves to be the case at the next general election, the PP and VOX between them would win 190 of Congress’s 350 seats, well above the 176 needed to form a government and the 170 they currently have, according to the latest polls. Engulfed by various corruption scandals affecting the Socialists and his family, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is resisting the call for an early election.

The Socialists and Sumar won 153 seats in the 2023 election and managed to cobble together a coalition government which relies on the parliamentary support of two Catalan and two Basque parties, one Galician and Podemos.

Polls can be volatile, while the regions with the strongest nationalist presence (the Basque Country, Catalonia, where the Socialists are also strong, and Galicia) are not due to hold elections this year, and so the sentiment there cannot be taken into account when seeking to predict the outcome of the next general election. What does seem certain is the advance of VOX. Whether it becomes the PP’s kingmaker remains to be seen.

La entrada Spain moves to the right, following four regional elections se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

• The detection and identification of terrorist content online in Spain is carried out by specialised analyst and translation teams in the National Unit for the Removal of Illegal Content (UNECI). The latter is integrated into the Counter-Terrorism Division of the intelligence Centre against Terrorism and Organised Crime (CITCO). Its main function is the monitoring of open sources (OSINT) to detect, analyse and act against threats related to terrorism and violent extremism in the digital environment.
• The UNECI has a preventative approach based on the generation of strategic intelligence and early risk management in the digital environment. The removal of content is therefore developed as a preventive activity of an administrative, not judicial, nature. Cooperation between the UNECI and online hosting providers aims to promote the self-protection of Internet platforms to reduce the dissemination of harmful, illegal and terrorist content before it generates consequences for society at large.
• Communication and cooperation with online hosting providers is following the principle of co-responsibility promoted at the level of the EU between law enforcement and private companies. The UNECI works with platforms and online providers mainly through private-public partnerships involving voluntary cooperation.

Analysis

The Internet has become an indispensable tool for terrorist and violent extremist groups. In the EU the legislative response to violent extremist and terrorism on digital platforms has shifted, over the past decade, from voluntary industry self-regulation towards a co-responsibility framework. Online service and hosting providers offering services in the EU must actively take measures to prevent, block and remove terrorist content present on their platforms and services. For the purposes of this paper, online service providers are intermediaries that enable users to access and exchange content, while hosting providers are those that store and make that content technically available on their infrastructure.

Towards this goal, in 2021 the European Commission adopted the Terrorist Content Online Regulation (TCO) (EU 2021/784), which entered into force in June 2022. The TCO Regulation compels hosting providers to remove terrorist content within one hour of receiving a removal order from a national competent authority, and establishes a range of obligations concerning proactive detection, data preservation and notification. Part of the same agenda that strives for a coherent legal framework in digital governance, the Digital Services Act (DSA) (EU 2022/2065), applicable from February 2024 onwards, establishes a comprehensive framework for accountability, transparency and content moderation for digital services across the EU while setting up rules to override industry self-regulation. It updates the Electronic Commerce Directive of 2009 by aiming to harmonise rules for digital services, reduce fragmentation of national laws, and ensure a safe and predictable online environment. Aside from terrorist content, platforms must address illegal content, disinformation and societal risk, making the DSA a more comprehensive regulatory framework than the rest.

Large service and hosting providers and law-enforcement agencies in EU Member States have already established working relationships and public-private cooperation standards for terrorism content removal and prevention. However, cooperation varies from place to place in the Union. In Spain, the work of the Intelligence Centre against Terrorism and Organised Crime (CITCO) and its National Unit for The Removal of Illegal Content are prime examples of how the principle of co-responsibility in the field of security works to include online platforms.

The CITCO’s role and responsibilities in the removal of terrorist content

Spain’s engagement with the governance of terrorist content online has been shaped largely by the CITCO, which has built a distinctive institutional role in the field over the past decade. Appointed as Spain’s representative to the EU Internet Forum and national contact point for Europol’s IRU in 2015, the CITCO progressively expanded its mandate. In 2019 it became Spain’s contact point for the voluntary EU Crisis Protocol, and in 2021 it was formally designated as Spain’s competent national authority under the TCO Regulation, in force since June 2022. To discharge its mandate, the CITCO promoted the creation of the National Unit for The Removal of Illegal Content, formally constituted by Royal Decree 207/2024. In practice, the issue of removal orders, coordination with police forces and cooperation with Europol had been operational functions since early 2021.

The Spanish National Unit for the Removal of Illegal Content (UNECI)

The UNECI operates as an integrated unit within the CITCO’s Counter-Terrorism Division, with a mandate built around the open-source monitoring (OSINT) of the digital environment for terrorist and violent extremist content. The National Unit serves two complimentary purposes: (a) intelligence generation, whereby detected online content feeds into the CITCO’s broader strategic assessment of the terrorist threat; and (b) content removal, where the UNECI acts against illegal material linked to terrorism or radicalisation processes by developing available legal instruments, including voluntary referrals and binding removal orders in coordination with national police forces and international partners such as Europol.

In the spirit of the co-responsibility principle, UNECI works directly with specialised private-sector providers who support (p. 13) the Unit in monitoring, analysing and tracking terrorism and illegal content online.

Three modes of cooperation with service providers

In practice, the UNECI’s cooperation with digital platforms takes three distinct forms, ranging from day-to-day, trust-based interaction to emergency response mechanisms. Each modality reflects a different level of legal obligation and operational urgency, together forming a tiered model that privileges prevention and cooperation over coercive regulatory enforcement.

Ongoing monitoring and referrals

The most routine dimension of the UNECI’s work involves continuous monitoring of online platforms for terrorist and violent extremist content. The UNECI engages with online hosting providers through a tiered model that prioritises voluntary cooperation over formal compulsion. In the first instance, the UNECI sends referrals relying on voluntary cooperation rather than legal obligation. These referrals are often conducted collectively through Europol-coordinated Referral Action Days, in which multiple Member States and platforms jointly review large volumes of content. Removal orders are administrative, not judicial, in nature.

Where voluntary notifications are disregarded, the UNECI escalates to a binding removal order under the TCO Regulation, which platforms must comply with within one hour. The compliance is transmitted via Europol’s PERCI tool and in practice occurs within minutes. Removal orders trigger a mandatory data preservation obligation of six months, extendable upon request by the competent authorities. The channel through which these orders are processed varies according to the size of the platform and whether it has a legal presence in the EU. With large platforms that have a legal representative in the EU, the UNECI maintains a permanent direct contact. These platforms are required to designate a contact point or legal representative accessible to the competent national authorities, through whom they receive removal orders electronically, including via Europol’s PERCI tool. The latter serves as a secure, centralised channel to avoid duplication of orders between different Member States. For smaller or more specialised platforms that lack a legal representative in the EU, particularly in the gaming sector, the UNECI turns to the Sirius Project. This is the joint Europol-Eurojust platform that provides guidelines, contact databases and standardised forms for requesting the preservation and disclosure of data from service providers in cross-border contexts.

Imminent threats to life

Within the operational arm of content removal, there are specific circumstances in which the UNECI also handles data which can be later used as electronic evidence in a terrorism investigation. That is the case of Article 14 (5) of the TCO Regulation, whereby online hosting providers are obliged to proactively notify competent authorities in EU Member States when they detect content posing an imminent threat to life. In such cases the platform is legally required to preserve that data for six months, extendable by a further six months if a police investigation is formally opened.

The EU Crisis Protocol

When a terrorist attack occurs, the CITCO has the authority to trigger the EU Crisis Protocol. The latter is a voluntary framework under which major online service and hosting providers, including Meta, Google and Microsoft, have committed to coordinated action. Within a window of typically 72 hours, the CITCO works with platforms through a Europol-managed Crisis Coordination Team to identify and remove content glorifying the attack, propagandising for the perpetrating organisation or offensive to victims, while preserving data for potential judicial use. Platform cooperation rests on established trust rather than legal compulsion, and the CITCO’s role stops entirely short of criminal investigations, which remain the exclusive responsibility of the judicial and police authorities of the country concerned.

Voluntary cooperation as the modus operandi

Spain’s track record under the TCO Regulation shows that voluntary cooperation outperforms legal compulsion. Since the TCO Regulation entered into force, the UNECI has issued more than 100 removal orders, yet the majority if its platform engagement takes the form of voluntary referrals. This preference has become obvious over time. For instance, in 2024 UNECI for the first time issued more autonomous referrals than those conducted through Europol-coordinated Referral Action Days, reflecting the growing bilateral confidence with platforms. Platforms themselves proactively remove over 60% of terrorist content on their own initiative, a capacity the UNECI actively cultivates by sharing intelligence and analytical expertise with the platforms’ moderation teams.

Formal removal orders, of which Spain issued more than 60 in 2023, accounting for nearly 60% of all EU orders that year, remain the secondary choice for when cooperative channels have been exhausted. The broader trend points towards a deepening institutionalisation of this relationship, with the UNECI and platforms increasingly functioning as partners in early risk detection rather than simply as regulator and regulated.

Electronic evidence, content removal and counter-terrorism

The European Commission’s February 2024 TCO implementation report acknowledged that content removal is functioning but noted that data preserved through that process is rarely leveraged systematically for criminal proceedings. Data retention by service and hosting providers in the EU has been the subject of a long debate and extensive case law at the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU). The Court has progressively narrowed the conditions under which service providers can be required to retain traffic and location data, even for counter-terrorism purposes. This has sparked criticism from law enforcement bodies across the Union who find it hard to conduct an investigation without clear rules on the retention and preservation of data.

In light of this, a new legislative framework was adopted in 2023 to harmonise the evidence preservation and transfer from hosting providers in EU criminal matters. The e-Evidence Regulation applies from 18 August 2026 and introduces two new instruments, the European Production Order and the European Preservation Order, which allow law enforcement bodies to request electronic evidence directly from service providers across borders, entirely bypassing the Mutual Legal Assistance channels. The accompanying Directive, which required Member States to adapt their national procedural law, had a transposition deadline of 18 February 2026.

Whether Spain has transposed the E-Evidence Directive on time is uncertain. The country has a documented history of delayed transposition in the justice and home affairs domain, having previously been fined €15 million by the CJEU in 2021 for failing to transpose Directive 2016/680 on law enforcement data protection, and is currently facing infringement proceedings for the late transposition of the NIS2 Directive. It remains to be seen whether prosecutors will have a new EU instrument available from August 2026 with no national framework through which to use it.

Conclusion

Spain has built one of the most operationally active counter-terrorism frameworks for online content in the EU. Yet the environment in which that cooperation takes place is changing. The platforms Spain relies on are now subject to an expanding and overlapping set of EU regulatory obligations, from the GDPR, DSA, DMA, AI Act, to NIS2, which all are reshaping how private actors engage with public authorities across the board. The E-Evidence Regulation enters into force in August 2026, the EU Crisis Protocol is being placed on a binding legal footing and data retention rules remain unsettled. Counter-terrorism online is no longer a purely technical or operational challenge, but a legal and institutional one as well. How Spain navigates the next phase will say as much about its legislative capacity as about its counter-terrorism expertise.

La entrada Cooperation with online service providers in counter-terrorism: a snapshot of the Spanish National Unit for the Removal of Illegal Content (UNECI) se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

• The AccelerateEU Communication sets out short-term measures for coordination and consumer protection in the face of the new energy crisis.
• In the long term, it commits to decarbonisation and electrification to reduce dependence on and vulnerability to imported fossil fuels.
• The Communication has been well received by stakeholders in decarbonisation and electrification, although criticised for a lack of ambition and specificity.

Analysis

The European Commission’s Communication ‘AccelerateEU-Energy Union: affordable and secure energy through accelerated action’ aims to provide a short- and long-term response to the energy crisis stemming from the current conflict in the Middle East through a set of guidelines and measures. The analysis first addresses the Commission’s fundamental shift in approach, which makes clear that for the EU, decarbonisation is no longer merely a climate and environmental imperative, but an economic, social, competitiveness and security necessity. It thus replaces the traditional energy trilemma relationship between economic, environmental and security objectives with that of a virtuous circle between the three goals. It then examines the five groups of measures set out in the Communication: in the short term, the coordination of measures among Member States and protecting consumers and industry; in the long term, but with immediate effects, accelerating decarbonisation and electrification, improving the European energy system and boosting investment.

The end of the European energy trilemma in the long term

The proposals are based on a two-fold assessment: first, that although the duration of the conflict is uncertain, the impact of the energy crisis on the EU may persist over time even in the least extreme scenarios; secondly, that the succession of two energy crises in less than five years, caused by geopolitical shocks, highlights the ‘dangers of Europe’s dependence on fossil fuel imports’. This assessment was already implicit in the RepowerEU plan adopted following the energy crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. AccelerateEU makes this explicit, marking a significant conceptual shift in European energy policy by clearly establishing that, in the long term, the EU does not face a trilemma between security, competitiveness and sustainability; on the contrary, for Europe, the energy transition is not only ‘a climate and environmental necessity, but also a socio-economic, competitiveness and security imperative’, in line with what was already noted in the Draghi Report.

These are energy policy objectives which, far from contradictory, ‘reinforce and complement each other’, meaning that the trilemma disappears and is transformed into a virtuous circle. The Communication also aims to anticipate future geopolitical shocks, acknowledging that the EU’s problem is not to replace some gas and oil suppliers with others, but to reduce its dependence on fossil fuel imports. This approach recognises that the EU must pursue its own decarbonised energy path to compete with China and the US, and that to overcome this rivalry it must advance an open decarbonisation strategy based on the diversification of alliances to prevent energy dominance from its rivals.

This approach has several implications, which are set out in five groups of proposals that also align with the overall strategy of the RepowerEU plan. First, the urgent need for short-term action (1) to coordinate Member States’ responses and (2) to protect vulnerable European consumers and industries from rising energy prices and prevent supply shortages. Secondly, the need for long-term action to transform the European energy system and reduce its vulnerability to external shocks by (3) accelerating decarbonisation and electrification, (4) improving its operation and integration, and (5) undertaking the necessary investments to achieve this. Taken together, AccelerateEU comprises a mosaic of 44 measures, several of which were already included in RepowerEU and other previous Commission Communications, as detailed in the following sections of this analysis.

In the short term, the Commission’s capacity to adopt measures is very limited, as it is the Member States that control the levers of economic, energy and fiscal policies. Hence the emphasis on coordinating measures and the proposal for general guidelines for national energy policies to prevent further fragmentation of the European energy market. This indicative approach has been criticised for failing to include more drastic measures addressing the risk of fuel shortages and the deterioration of citizens’ living standards and European competitiveness, but it must be emphasised that the measures available to the Commission are limited. In the long term, the strategy consists of accelerating the decarbonisation and electrification measures already proposed, as well as preparing the European energy system for this through complementary reforms and new investments. In this regard, the Communication has also been criticised for proposing a patchwork of existing measures with few new elements.

Coordination

Coordination would apply to gas storage and the relaxation of storage obligations, joint purchases of gas and oil, the release of oil reserves, national emergency measures, and ensuring the availability of aviation fuel and diesel, including the ‘optimisation of oil refinery production capacity’. Given that these activities are in the hands of Member States’ governments or private companies, their Europeanisation does not appear straightforward, as demonstrated by the criticism of the limited results of joint gas purchases. To facilitate coordination, the Communication also proposes to establish a Fuel Observatory to monitor supply and available stocks, initially prioritising aviation fuels.

As an example of the limitations facing these proposals, Spain is in a more comfortable position regarding refining than other European countries, thanks to significant recent investment and the presence of three different refining companies within the country. Some of the products refined in Spain are exported to the EU, but also to other EU partners, such as Morocco and the US. It is not clear from the Communication what the coordination would entail, nor whether it would involve some form of ‘European preference’ mechanism as an alternative to market forces, which on their own should tend to prioritise meeting European demand. The creation of an observatory is welcome, but it remains to be specified what the Commission would do with the data obtained, how it intends to optimise refinery production, and what measures it plans to adopt to prevent shortages in the most affected countries.

Protection of consumers and industry

The second package of proposals aims to protect vulnerable consumers and industries, based on three general principles: (a) a timely response to address the urgent needs of the crisis; (b) that this response be temporary, so that the measures adopted do not distort the incentives for long-term decarbonisation; and (c) that it be targeted, so that it is directed exclusively at the most vulnerable citizens and sectors. This new trinity of the three ‘Ts’ of European energy policy presents its own difficulties. Regarding urgency, at the recent informal summit in Cyprus on 23 and 24 April, it was agreed to postpone short-term measures and to instruct the Finance and Energy Ministers to continue the debate at forthcoming meetings scheduled for May, presenting concrete proposals in June to address rising prices.

With regard to the use of targeted measures, the AccelerateEU proposals incorporate those already set out in last March’s Communication on the Citizens’ Energy Package: income-based support schemes; vouchers, social tariffs and reductions in excise duties on electricity for vulnerable households and energy-intensive industries; VAT reductions for the installation of heat pumps, solar panels and batteries; tax incentives for electric vehicles; incentives and facilitation for energy communities and self-consumption, etc. Several Member States, however, have adopted socially regressive tax measures that fail to differentiate by income level; these include Germany and Spain, although in the Spanish case these have been accompanied by some of the measures proposed to provide a social safety net for the most vulnerable households and incentives for energy communities and self-consumption.

A much-criticised element of the Commission’s proposal is the green light given to state aid, raising the risk of fracturing the single market as the wealthier states with stronger fiscal positions could grant greater support –a point highlighted by countries such as Italy–. State aid would be particularly harmful if not conditional on effective short-term measures in favour of electrification that enable a structural transformation of the European energy system. However, the Communication does not include the proposal from Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy and Portugal for a tax on energy companies’ windfall profits, a highly controversial measure which in the past led these companies to point out the inconsistency of increasing their tax burden whilst encouraging them to make major investments in decarbonisation. Instead, it does recognise Member States’ ability to do so at national level, a move criticised by associations such as Wind Europe. Eurelectric has also warned that the measures must not distort markets or affect the predictability of regulation.

Nor have measures been adopted to decouple electricity prices from gas prices, such as the one that allowed the Iberian exception to be applied during the 2022 crisis and which was also opposed by the electricity sector, as it was considered a distortion of the marginalist market that negatively affected price and investment signals. In this regard, it should be noted that the price level reached by natural gas in Europe has not reached the extreme levels of 2022, when it stood at around €300/MWh on the benchmark TTF, compared with €45/MWh recorded at the time of writing. It should also be remembered that the roll-out of renewables since then has reduced the influence of gas on electricity pricing, particularly in countries such as Spain and France, which have a higher share of renewables and nuclear power in their electricity mix, respectively. According to the data cited in the Communication itself, since 2021 the EU has installed some 260 GW of renewable capacity, equivalent to a saving of around 15 bcm of gas in generation by 2025 and 5% of European gas imports.

Accelerating decarbonisation and electrification

The third set of measures relating to the long-term transformation of the energy system concerns accelerating the transition to clean energy and electrification. The Communication notes that in the first six weeks of the energy crisis caused by the conflict in the Middle East, the EU’s bill for fossil fuel imports rose by €24 billion; it also notes that in 2025 the EU imported fossil fuels worth €340 billion, equivalent to almost half of the NextGenerationEU funds (€750 billion). The Communication highlights that those Member States with higher penetration of renewables and nuclear generation have more moderate wholesale electricity prices. The Communication proposes to mitigate the vulnerability posed by dependence on fossil fuel imports by accelerating the deployment of all indigenous energy sources it classifies as clean: solar photovoltaic and thermal, wind, geothermal, biomethane, sustainable biofuels, hydrogen (although it being a Carrier rather than a source) and nuclear.

The commitment to decarbonisation is clear and consolidates the direction of European energy policies, including the defence of the European Emissions Trading System (ETS). However, the Communication has been criticised for reshuffling elements of existing plans, which could result in a lack of ambition, integration and consistency in the measures. For example, it states that the annual installed renewable electricity generation capacity should increase to 100 GW per year, as already set out in the Clean Industrial Pact Communication. On the subject of nuclear energy, it revisits previous Communications by proposing the construction of new small modular reactors (SMRs) or ‘avoiding the premature decommissioning of existing nuclear capacity’. In the Commission’s defence, one might ask whether, in the current European political context, there is an appetite for greater ambition on renewables and whether opposition to nuclear energy from some Member States allows for further progress in this area.

The second key idea is the commitment to accelerating electrification ‘to end exposure to fossil fuel price fluctuations and dependence on imports’. For some analysts, one of the most important achievements of the European response to the current energy crisis would be for the EU to adopt ‘a genuine electrification strategy’. The Clean Industry Pact and the Action Plan for Affordable Energy already set a 32% electrification rate target for 2030 as a benchmark, but AccelerateEU proposes setting a new target immediately. It should be noted that Spain is lagging behind the 35% target the country had set for 2030. The Communication makes explicit reference to heat pumps and the electrification of transport. For example, it proposes adopting measures to ‘promote the sales of electric vehicles’ and accelerate the development of ‘sufficient charging infrastructure’.

In addition to electrification, the Communication also proposes supporting the development of biogas, biomethane and renewable hydrogen, for which it proposes revising the production criteria to drive industrial decarbonisation. It also proposes accelerating the development of sustainable aviation fuels (eSAF) and sustainable marine fuels (eSMF).

Improvement and integration of the European energy system

The fourth set of measures relates to improving the energy system, although it focuses on accelerating the already approved European Networks Package to develop these networks, make them more flexible and advance greater integration at European level capable of incorporating more renewables. The Commission is committed to concluding negotiations on the European Networks Package by this summer (July), including accelerating the Energy Highways Initiative to remove the main European bottlenecks; these include electricity interconnections with the Iberian Peninsula and the south-western hydrogen corridor that will link it to Germany. It also reiterates the target of a 15% interconnection rate, but as with other proposals, only for indicative purposes without introducing new obligations or financial commitments beyond those already approved.

To develop network capacities, the Communication aims to adopt a legislative proposal on network tariffs and taxes to facilitate electrification and reduce bills. The aim is to provide incentives for the optimal use of network infrastructure, clarify the framework so that national regulatory authorities can apply specific reductions to network tariffs, and ensure that electricity bears a lower tax burden than gas. To increase flexibility, the Communication highlights the need to adopt measures to support storage, whose current capacity in the EU stands at 55 GW, and proposes increasing this to 200 GW by 2030, particularly in batteries. However, the Commission has been criticised by solar associations for failing to propose concrete measures to achieve these levels of battery storage and other forms of non-fossil energy flexibility.

Investments

The fifth set of measures aims to increase investment in the energy transition and the circular economy to ‘break the cycle of dependence on fossil fuels once and for all’. The aim is to mobilise public and private investment to anticipate and accelerate the energy transition. AccelerateEU highlights that public funds alone cannot cover the necessary investments in the energy transition, estimated at €660 billion annually until 2030 and €695 billion annually between 2031 and 2040. To mobilise private investment, the Communication draws on the Clean Energy Investment Strategy launched by the Commission last March, which seeks to ‘catalyse’ private investment by improving access to capital markets for electricity network operators, reducing the risk associated with innovative clean technologies, and establishing an Energy Transition Investment Council with the investment community.

One of the most interesting points, yet to be finalised, concerns a legislative proposal to update and modernise the ETS, including an Investment Accelerator funded by €400 million from the ETS to support the decarbonisation of energy-intensive industries. It is proposed that the Commission assist Member States wishing to explore the use of ETS revenues to invest in industrial electrification and decarbonisation.

However, the Communication does not propose the creation of new funds, referring instead to the final tranche of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the Connecting Europe Facility funds, the Cohesion Fund, and those funds earmarked for research, development and innovation in clean technologies. It does propose assessing the adoption of additional measures to simplify rules and accelerate the deployment of EU funds for the energy transition. Nor does it explore the possibility of excluding public investment in transition infrastructure from debt procedures, as proposed by Italy. Nor does it consider whether investments in the energy transition could be financed through Eurobonds, as recently proposed by the President of the European Central Bank.

Conclusions

Overall, the Commission’s proposals have been well received, especially by those advocating decarbonisation and electrification. The explicit commitment to both as key pathways for achieving the EU’s economic, security and environmental goals consolidates the direction of European energy policy in a challenging political context and is in line with most independent analyses. Perhaps the most interesting element is the introduction of an ambitious electrification target, although it remains to be seen whether it will be binding. Also significant is the prominence given to reforming the ETS by directing it towards investment in the decarbonisation of energy-intensive sectors, rather than eroding it as some countries and sectors had demanded. The short-term proposals in response to the energy crisis, regarding the coordination of measures and the Communication’s conceptual and guiding terms for consumer protection, have also been generally welcomed. Although they have been criticised as insufficient by some stakeholders, it must be borne in mind that the Commission’s influence on Member States’ policies is limited given its limited powers and the differing preferences between countries.

The Communication has also been criticised for bringing together initiatives already underway without introducing any major new developments in terms of targets, new instruments or additional funding. These criticisms can be qualified by the fact that there is little point in introducing highly ambitious new targets, for example on electrification, without mobilising the necessary resources to achieve them. Some analysts and associations have also expressed concern that the measures could distort and fragment markets by allowing Member States to apply state aid and windfall taxes. Conversely, these same stakeholders have welcomed the fact that the Communication does not respond to calls from some countries to apply such taxes at European level or to reform the electricity market to decouple it from gas prices.

From now on, the EU’s Economy and Energy Ministers will have to take decisions to finalise the measures selected. At the Cyprus summit on 23 and 24 April, it was agreed to continue discussions in May on short-term measures to alleviate the energy crisis. The Commission has proposed presenting a catalogue of energy-saving and efficiency measures in May, based on an assessment of the most successful measures adopted since the 2022 energy crisis to rapidly reduce oil and gas consumption in the short term. Long-term measures should also be taken immediately, or at least this is envisaged in the AccelerateEU timetable, whose 44 measures are planned for the coming months.

From a national perspective, AccelerateEU largely aligns with Spanish preferences. Although an opportunity has been missed to make the interconnection target binding, despite the importance attached to it in the Communication itself and the conclusions of the Letta and Draghi Reports, it once again highlights the need for greater energy interconnection. Whilst it advises against the adoption of measures not focused on consumers and the most vulnerable sectors –such as some of those adopted by Spain– it does include other measures adopted by the Spanish government aimed at their protection, as well as incentivising self-consumption and energy communities. Setting an electrification target could help Spain catch up in this regard and, in any case, aligns with Spanish preferences. Finally, AccelerateEU barely mentions cooperation with third countries, but the considerations regarding the EU’s external action are of interest to Spain, even if they appear as footnotes: the importance of consolidating a Mediterranean hub, the implementation of the Trans-Mediterranean Initiative for Renewable Energy and Clean Technologies, and the Latin American dimension of the Global Gateway.

La entrada AccelerateEU: European responses to a new energy crisis se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

What are the reasons for this? The most common ones given are the impact of the divisive Brexit, agreed by a narrow margin (52% to 48%) in a referendum in 2019 and which a majority of voters would now like to overturn, the UK’s economic decline and the impact of social media that has deepened polarisation.

But another factor is also increasingly being blamed for the topsy-turviness: the first-past-the-post voting system (FPTP), under which the candidate with the most votes –even when far short of a majority– wins. Not for nothing is FPTP known as ‘winner takes all’, leaving the other parties that fielded candidates with nothing. This would, prima facie, seem fair. After all, there is only one winner in most competitions, and elections are a competition. But deciding which party will govern a country under FPTP is not the same as winning a board game. There are no consolation prizes, which might often soften disappointment and reward effort; those leaving who voted for the losing parties are left feeling disenfranchised.

FPTP gave Britain stable single-party majority governments with both the Conservatives and Labour tending to last their full five-year term in office until 2017 when Teresa May called a snap election in the hope of winning a bigger majority (which did not happen). Boris Johnson then called another early election in 2019. FPTP is used in around one-third of countries, notably in the US and also in Canada and India. MPs serve the constituency they campaign in. As a result they remain in touch with local issues, tackle local problems and have face-to-face contact with their constituents.

A shift occurred in the 2024 election when a record one-third of voters supported none of the three main parties, Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrats. Close to 60% of voters got an MP they did not vote for. Starmer led Labour to a landslide victory, with 411 of the 650 MPs (63.2% of the total) on a mere 33.7% of the vote (see Figure 1). Labour, on that basis, was the most over-represented party, while the hard-right populist Reform UK was the most under-represented (0.8% of the seats on 14.3% of the vote). The Liberal Democrats won a smaller slice of the vote (12.2%) than Reform but because of the nature of FPTP captured 11.1% of the seats.

Figure 1. UK’s election results 2024, main parties, % of votes and number and % of seats

The UK’s Electoral Reform Society says FPTP is ‘bad for voters, bad for government and bad for democracy’. It said the 2024 result was ‘not only the most disproportional election in British electoral history, but one of the most disproportional seen anywhere in the world’. David Cameron, the Conservative Prime Minister between 2010 and 2016, said the proportional representation (PR) system would allow people into parliament who did not finish first in their constituency in an election and would create a ‘parliament full of second-choices who no one really wanted but didn’t really object to either’. In return, however, for the support of the Liberal Democrats, which enabled him to be able to form a government, Cameron agreed to a referendum in 2011 on the so-called Alternative Vote system –often called Instant Runoff Voting in the US–. It is not a form of PR and is designed to deal with vote splitting. It was rejected by 67% of those who voted.

Spain uses the d’Hondt system of PR. It has produced stable governments, with the Socialists and Popular Party (PP) alternating in power and tending to last their full four-year term in office until 2015 when the political system fragmented with the entry into parliament of two new parties, the hard-left Podemos and the would-be centrist Ciudadanos, and then in 2019 the hard-right VOX. This system, widely used, divides total votes by a series of divisors (1,2,3…) to determine seat allocation and is generally considered to favour larger parties, which helps to form stable majorities.

The PR system is more representative of the electorate and delivers fairer treatment of minority parties and independent candidates. It encourages people to vote and reduces apathy: fewer votes are ‘wasted’ as more people’s preferences are taken into account. It rarely produces an absolute majority for one party and often leads to greater consensus in policy-making. Spain has had majority Socialist and Popular Party governments, partly because in the smaller of the 50 provinces (those with 2-6 seats in Congress) and the way d’Hondt works only the two main parties tend to get elected. Over- and under-representation in PR is much less prevalent than under FPTP. In the 2023 election, the PP, the dominant party, won 39.1% of the seats on 33.1% of the votes (see Figure 2). VOX and the hard-left Sumar won 33 and 31 seats, respectively, on 9.4% and 8.8% of the vote. The Catalan and Basque parties do quite well because they only field candidates in their regions and not nationally.

Figure 2. Spain’s election results 2023, main parties, % of votes and number and % of seats

The disadvantages of PR are that it makes it easier for extreme parties to gain representation (that system applied in the UK’s 2024 election would have given Reform UK around 100 MPs), it can create political gridlock (Spain had four elections between 2015 and 2019 ) and it favours compromise and coalitions that are not always the wisest course when a strong majority government is required to push through much-needed reforms (which some would argue is what Spain needs). It is no surprise that Reform UK is leading the call for PR –it needed 823,522 votes to elect an MP compared with 23,622 for Labour–. It used to be the Liberal Democrats who complained most about FPTP until they did very well in 2024.

Eric Maskin, a Nobel laureate in economics, says PR would make polarisation and fragmentation worse, and voters would no longer have a local MP directly accountable to them. The voting system that would best suit the UK, he argues, is Majority Rule (MR), as it would retain Britain’s traditional and much-loved single-member constituencies, a feature that many would like to keep and which is one of the main reasons why voters are reluctant to move to PR.

Under MR voters would rank the candidates in their constituency (or as many of them as they wish) in order of preference. The winner is then the candidate who would defeat each rival in a head-to-head contest according to the rankings. Maskin compares MR to 10 friends choosing a restaurant for dinner. ‘The four carnivores all prefer Steakhouse to Salad Bar to Tofu Table. Three of the vegetarians have the ranking Salad Bar > Tofu Table > Steakhouse, and the remaining three, Tofu Table > Salad Bar > Steakhouse. Under first-past-the-post, the meat-eaters win; Steakhouse comes first with 40%. But Salad Bar –the winner under MR– is a more democratic choice: 60% prefer it to Steakhouse, and 70% rank it above Tofu Table’.

A fairer voting system than FPTP would not in itself resolve the profound malaise in British politics, but it would make the electorate feel better represented and produce more collaborative governments that, in turn, might put an end to the quick turnover in Prime Ministers.

La entrada The UK needs a fairer voting system se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

By portraying Pope Leo as a distant international figure meddling in worldly affairs, Trump places the pontiff in a familiar category for his supporters: the elite globalist who lectures ordinary people while ignoring their concerns.

Once a thriving centre of Armenian Christian life in Mesopotamia, the surrounding community has now dwindled to a remnant. Iraq’s Assyrian, Chaldean, Greek Orthodox and Melkite Christians face a similar fate. These are among the oldest Christian communities on earth, yet in much of the US political imagination they scarcely register. Across the border in Iran, small but historically rooted Christian communities, including Armenian and Chaldo-Assyrian Christians, continue to shrink and face growing marginalisation. That helps explain why US President Donald Trump’s latest attack on Pope Leo XIV is not merely a swipe at the Vatican but a signal to an evangelical base that recognises Christianity only when it reflects its own image.

Barely a week after attending the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome, Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself dressed as a pope, just days before the conclave convened in May 2025. More recently, he turned to Truth Social to post another AI image in which he appeared in Christ-like form, ‘administering an ethereal light to a stricken man’s head as translucent figures descended from the heavens’. Many dismissed these stunts as yet another juvenile provocation but following his latest public attack on Pope Leo XIV, it is clear that in Trump’s mind, no global figure, religious or political, should rival his dominance of the public stage.

At no other moment in history have two US citizens plausibly had the ability to shape the world. One holds military power; the other moral authority. The irony, of course, is that while the conclave elected a US citizen it was essentially the antithesis of Trump. Chicago-born Pope Leo has emerged as a universal pastor, speaking of peace, dignity and the human cost of war. At his inaugural Mass on 19 May, Vice-president J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were amongst those in attendance, representing a White House whose politics stand in marked contrast to the new pontiff’s moral language. If the media images were a Renaissance painting, their presence at the momentous occasion would crystallise into a powerful tableau of a new reality, one in which another US citizen now commands global influence beyond Washington.

Trump’s subsequent attacks on the Pope are unlikely to be reactive, impulsive outbursts. An astute businessman and keen reader of public mood and temperament, he understands that confrontation within his political movement can serve as a source of energy. Sensational drama, however controversial or irreverent, keeps attention fixed on him and turns every disagreement into a test of allegiance.

By portraying Pope Leo as a distant international figure meddling in worldly affairs, Trump places the pontiff in a familiar category for his supporters: the elite globalist who lectures ordinary people while ignoring their concerns. By mocking calls for peace and restraint, Trump suggests that caution is weakness and that force is the true language of strength. And by targeting the head of the Roman Catholic Church, he taps into long-standing strains of evangelical suspicion towards Rome, where papal authority has often been seen with mistrust.

Viewed this way, the insult was aimed less at the Vatican than at the US electorate. Trump’s circle embodies a distinctly civilisational form of politics in which faith, identity and power are interlaced, some would argue drawing on an older imperial pattern in which theology and authority reinforced one another. Consider Marco Rubio’s rhetoric, which has at times invoked the language of a ‘clash of civilisations’, or Pete Hegseth’s Deus Vult tattoo, evoking Crusader-era imagery that has long been mobilised in anti-Muslim narratives. Such symbolism resonates with US evangelical political thought that interprets the Middle East through apocalyptic prophecy and strategic dominance rather than pluralistic coexistence. The result is a binary worldview, closer in spirit to ancient Manichaean divisions than to the ethical complexity of mainstream Christian thought.

By contrast, Pope Leo XIV takes a very different tone, focusing on human dignity, the protection of refugees, the suffering of war victims, environmental stewardship and peaceful coexistence. He continues the line of recent pontiffs who have drawn attention to the plight of Middle-Eastern Christians. Like Pope Francis before him, whose 2021 visit to Iraq during the pandemic made that message a defining theme, Pope Leo speaks of these communities not as relics of the past but as integral to the region’s pluralistic future. Pope Francis’s historic visit offered moral support to dwindling Christian communities and signalled concern for minorities whose survival depends on coexistence rather than political protection alone. He also inherited a papacy that under Pope Francis made Gaza, displacement and the suffering of Middle-Eastern civilians moral imperatives, extending the Church’s gaze far beyond the culture wars of US politics. According to UNESCO, among the nearly 200 sites in Gaza damaged or destroyed during the war, is the Byzantine Church of Jabalia, built in 444 and destroyed in October 2023. The same concern was evident in Pope Francis’s meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf, where two religious leaders embodied a moral authority that Iraq’s fractured state failed to match. Trump’s brand of geopolitics asks who wins, while Pope Leo’s geo-theology asks what remains of our shared humanity after the contest for power is over.

For the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East, that question is hardly polemical. Their existence complicates every oversimplified map of ‘East’ and ‘West’ and their survival rarely fits into modern political narratives or agendas. Many in the US speak of defending Christianity while overlooking Christians whose roots in the region predate the US itself by centuries. In US political discourse, these indigenous communities are erased when the region is reduced to shorthand as ‘the Islamic world’. They are not guests in the Middle East. They are among its indigenous peoples. They were there before the flags now ruling over them.

Successive upheavals in places like Iraq have irrevocably destabilised ancient Christian life, especially in the years following the US-led invasion. Sectarian violence, kidnappings, church bombings and mass emigration steadily hollowed out communities that had endured for centuries. The rise of ISIS in Mosul and the Nineveh Plains aggravated the rupture, accelerating what many describe as an existential collapse of presence. What had survived empires, dynasties and centuries of regional change was, in a remarkably short span, pushed to the edge of disappearance. The war was sold to the US public in the language of democracy and liberation, but for many Christians on the ground it translated into displacement, fear and erasure.

Trump’s attacks on Pope Leo are, in essence, a collision between two visions of the US. What makes Pope Leo’s discourse so jarring to Trump and his cohorts is his categorical rejection of the familiar language of simplification and exceptionalism. Like the child who says the emperor has no clothes, Pope Leo exposes the gap between US rhetoric and lived reality in places like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the Holy Land. He gives voice to a region that is no longer buying the ‘made in America’ narrative of itself. If the West cannot recognise Christianity unless it speaks in its own accent, it may one day find that some of the oldest Christian voices on earth have fallen silent.

La entrada Trump’s attacks on the Pope are no stunts but a contest for moral authority se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

The country’s digital infrastructure is generally more advanced than the EU average, with higher coverage rates in most categories (see Figure 1). The contribution to the EU’s Digital Decade is ambitious, with 13 national targets, 12 of which are aligned with the EU 2030 targets. The 5G spectrum assignment in pioneer bands, identified as critical for the roll-out of 5G technology, is particularly strong. A weak area, however, is the relatively small number of ICT specialists.

Figure 1. Observed key performance indicators as a percentage of the EU 2030 targets

An INE survey showed that 21% of companies were using AI systems in 2025 (compared with 13% in 2022), fewer than Germany but more than Italy. The TIC sector is the one with the greatest use, as one would expect (59% in 2025; 42% in 2022), followed by industry (18%; 10%) and construction (11%; 7%). The adoption rate is higher in large, productive and young companies, where AI is mainly used to optimise internal processes and for marketing but less for task automation and innovation. While the use of basic tools such as websites and social media is widespread among SMEs, uptake of more productivity-enhancing technologies such as enterprise resource planning, cloud computing, and AI is low.

The evidence so far from the latest labour force survey shows that AI is not destroying jobs in net terms so far, but it is having a particular impact on employing the youngest workers. Companies are not laying off their junior staff; they have simply stopped hiring them. If this trend takes hold, the long-term consequences could be more far-reaching than a mere reduction in employment, as the loss of access to entry-level positions means that young people will not gain the experience that would enable them to benefit from working alongside AI throughout their careers.

AI offers significant potential to improve the delivery of public services by reducing bureaucratic and paperwork burdens and improving interactions with citizens, as well as feeding data and evidence into the policymaking process.According to a task-based economic model applied to 1.4 million public administration workers by the think tank EsadeEcPol:

• For 67% of them, between 10% and half of their tasks could be enhanced by generative AI.
• For 9%,the potential is even higher as AI incorporation could benefit over half of their tasks.
• The remaining 24% display low potential due to the non-replaceable nature of their tasks.

In the healthcare sector, AI systems could significantly reduce the administrative burden on professionals. According to a government study, the use of AI in primary care could free up professionals to handle up to five additional consultations a day, whilst in specialist care it could reduce waiting lists by 22 days. In banking, the Bank of Spain is integrating machine learning into supervisory functions, allowing it to also address, like other central banks, a growing number of complex and novel issues, drive productivity and contain costs. The big banks Santander, BBVA and Caixabank are AI-native.

The government is allocating just over one-quarter of the funds from its recovery and resilience plan (€163 billion), financed by Next Generation EU, to digital. Spain was the first EU country (in 2023) to create a dedicated agency for the supervision of AI (AESIA), based in A Coruña. It also pioneered the first AI Regulatory Sandbox, a controlled environment where high-risk AI projects are being tested to ensure they meet the EU AI Act requirements before they hit the market. The National AI Strategy (ENIA) is the backbone of government policy. It focuses on funding AI Chairs at universities to bridge academia and industry and an initiative to develop a massive large language model to avoid ‘cultural bias’ from US-centric models. Spain is positioning itself as the ‘guardian’ of the Spanish-speaking AI world, providing the infrastructure for Latin America to avoid ‘digital colonialism’. Meanwhile, the PERTE Chip programme aims to reduce dependence on foreign semiconductors.

There are regional hubs. The Madrid AI Cluster connects start-ups with corporate investment, the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre upgraded MareNostrum 5 earlier this year, making it one of the world’s most powerful ‘AI factories’ for training models, and ‘Malaga Valley’ in Andalusia hosts international tech firms such as Google and Vodafone. Spain is one of the most active EU countries in implementing the European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles.

R&D investment, however, remains low (see Figure 2). Insufficient investment can lead to slower advancements in AI, as progress can stall due to a lack of resources.

Figure 2. R&D investment, 2024 (% of GDP)

AI could help Spain deal with its demographic challenge –a very low fertility rate and a fast-ageing population– by improving productivity but, as the OECD notes, ‘it is by no means a substitute or silver bullet for a lack of human workers’.

La entrada The AI challenge for Spain se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

(a) The Paris Agreement has delivered significant results since its adoption, yet we are still far off track to meet the goals established in 2015[1]

Since its adoption in 2015 the Paris Agreement has played a central role in shaping global climate governance. It established long-term goals to limit global temperature increases and created a framework for countries to submit, review and periodically update national commitments. The agreement has delivered significant results since its adoption, successfully lowering expected temperature rises from 4ºC to a projected 2.3ºC-2.5ºC, provided current commitments are met. However, we are still far off track to meet the established goals. Closing the ambition-action gap will require significantly strengthening climate commitments and accelerating implementation efforts before the end of the decade. Enhanced action at scale and speed by all actors is required to align scientific recommendations to actions that help significantly bend the emissions curve rapidly.

(b) In a context of geopolitical fragmentation, COP30 can be dubbed a lifeline for (climate) multilateralism that yielded some –rather modest– results

Ten years after the agreement’s adoption, the climate summit held in Belém in 2025 took place amid rising geopolitical tensions, the announced second US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and an isolated EU that has found it hard to achieve ambitious climate commitments. During a period of significant international fragmentation and a diminished global appetite for ambitious climate commitments, expectations for the conference were modest. COP30 nevertheless managed to reach several agreements and helped sustain the multilateral climate process at a time when the legitimacy[2] and effectiveness of international climate governance are increasingly questioned.

COP30 will be remembered for the submission of updated climate commitments, an agreement on adaptation indicators, a call to treble adaptation finance, the development of a Mechanism for Just Transition and the 2026-34 Gender Action Plan, among others. Several issues remained unresolved, notably progress on the COP28 commitment to transition away from fossil fuels and stronger action on deforestation. Acknowledging the difficulty of incorporating these topics into formal decision texts, the Brazilian presidency of COP30 announced the development of two roadmaps on transitioning away from fossil fuels (TAFF) and addressing deforestation.

Preserving the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) while adapting it to ensure Paris-aligned action on the ground will be essential to maintain global coordination on climate at a time when climate extremes are becoming increasingly frequent, generating growing economic, human and environmental costs.

(c) Political divisions, the EU’s limited influence and the need to reposition itself as a structural leader

The closing plenary at COP30 proved particularly contentious, as numerous countries, the EU included, criticised the COP presidency for gavelling through decisions without a full consensus, particularly regarding the adaptation indicators. The closing session also made the EU’s relative isolation increasingly visible, as it struggled to secure stronger mitigation outcomes, more robust adaptation indicators and explicit references to transitioning away from fossil fuels. Moving forward, the essentials of EU climate leadership can include: developing a long-term strategy on climate diplomacy; improving internal coordination ahead of COPs; exercising structural leadership –in addition to holding the line on directional leadership–; and rebuilding coalitions and strengthening alliances with state and non-state actors capable of advancing climate ambition, particularly when consensus proves difficult.

(d) While the UNFCCC process remains essential to develop and uphold the consensus-based global norm to address climate change, it is exhibiting diminishing marginal returns

Insufficient results after three decades of annual climate summits have once again raised the question of the usefulness of (and the need to reform) the UNFCCC process. This is so despite a widespread consensus regarding the process being considered the best tool there is to reach consensus and ensure legitimacy as we strive for a stable climate. With the Paris Agreement rulebook now largely completed, future negotiations are expected to have less negotiated outcomes, although reviews, updated commitments and mechanisms are ongoing. Academic and policy-oriented reviews of the process could consider reflecting on the universality and consensus principles that have guided negotiations over 30 years, possibly embracing a two-tier diplomacy inclusive of climate clubs within negotiated COP decisions.

[1] The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the suggestions and comments to the policy paper by Professor Gonzalo Escribano, director of the Energy and Climate Programme at Elcano Royal Institute. The usual disclaimer applies.

[2] Legitimacy according to Dellmuth, Gustafsson & Segovia-Tzompa (2025, p. 1) is understood as the ‘belief or acceptance that authority is appropriately exercised’, which is gauged to be a prerequisite for the effectiveness of the climate regime.

Image: Entrance to the COP30 venue in Brazil, Belem (17/11/2025). Photo: Connect4Climate (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

La entrada From the Paris Agreement to the future of climate negotiations after COP30 se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

The Elcano Global Presence Index confirms China’s sustained rise within the international system over recent decades. The advance has been driven primarily by the economic dimension, which constitutes the core of its external projection, although in the past decade its military presence has grown significantly as well. The resulting pattern reflects a comprehensive expansion strategy, grounded on a robust economic base and an increasingly visible security component.

The geographical distribution of this projection reveals two central features. First is the priority granted to its immediate neighbourhood, particularly in Asia-Pacific, where China has consolidated its position as a dominant actor. The second is a risk reduction strategy based on diversifying partners and markets, aimed at mitigating vulnerabilities stemming from tensions with the main Western powers.

In this context, China has reduced its relative exposure to the US, the EU and Japan, while strengthening ties with the so-called Global South. However, the reorientation is not uniform. Its presence is firmly consolidated in Asia Pacific, followed by Latin America, while developments in Africa and the Middle East have been more moderate and uneven.

Looking ahead, the outlook is uncertain. The year 2024 marks the first instance of a decline in China’s global presence, both in absolute and relative terms. The shift may signal a turning point in China’s expansionary trajectory or, alternatively, a cyclical correction within a longer-term process.

This Policy Paper raises relevant questions regarding China’s international trajectory, as well as the global or regional character of its power. It is hoped that it will provide robust data and evidence on the evolution of globalisation and multipolarity.

Introduction

It is well known that the process of globalisation over recent decades cannot be understood without the rise of Asia, particularly China, and the gradual shift of the centre of gravity of the world economy towards the Pacific. The rise has been underpinned by an export-oriented development strategy and rapid technological advancement that, through an active role of the state, has profoundly transformed China’s productive structure. From its initial strategies aimed at attracting offshoring industrial processes in segments of lower value-added, China has progressively consolidated its productive capacities through learning and technological development, combined with an active industrial policy that has enabled it to move into higher value-added activities and even to attain leadership in more advanced technologies, challenging the traditional primacy of the US, the EU and Japan.

China’s political and economic model also shapes its conception of the international order, which is markedly state-centric and post-Westphalian. Within this framework, sovereignty and political control occupy a central position, in contrast to the neoliberal paradigm that accords greater primacy to markets and private actors and, consequently, a more diffuse role to the state (Esteban, 2025). China’s trade surplus provided it with growing capacity for external financing, partly directed towards the US debt market, thereby strengthening a trade and financial interdependence between the two that until recently was understood as a mechanism of international security. However, as this interdependence deepened, and China moved up the more technologically advanced segments of global production chains, the logic has evolved from predominantly cooperative, into direct rivalry with the US, with implications for the EU, and towards the development of strategic autonomy (Esteban & Otero, 2025).

Contemporary globalisation is therefore characterised by increasing fragmentation and geostrategic rivalry (Gracia & González, 2025). Rather than a homogeneous global space, the world economy is increasingly structured around distinct regional integration areas that, in addition, were already the centripetal forces of globalisation as previously understood, alongside a form of governance extended to their respective spheres of influence.

The gap between countries’ actual external projection and the interest-driven narratives surrounding their expansion and influence is one of the key elements for understanding the new international order. Against this backdrop, this paper examines the evolution of China in the Elcano Global Presence Index, providing geographically disaggregated data with the aim of identifying with precision how China articulates its relations with different world regions and how these outcomes align with the priorities declared in its foreign policy strategy. From this perspective, it is pertinent to ask to what extent China is truly a global power (as opposed to a regional one), whether it has increased its projection in a homogeneous manner in all regions, and whether this projection follows similar patterns across the globe. This paper builds on previous exercises focusing on the US (Olivié & Gracia, 2024) and the EU (Olivié & Gracia, 2020), thereby completing a geographical analysis of how the main protagonists of the globalisation process over recent decades have articulated their global presence.

Image: View of a port area in Kowloon, Hong Kong, China. Photo: Chunyip Wong / Getty Images.

La entrada From region to world: geographical analysis of China’s global presence se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

Spain’s strategy towards China balances risk reduction and engagement to strengthen strategic autonomy while staying aligned with the EU.

That reading, however, misinterprets both Spain’s intentions and its strategic logic.

Spain’s approach is not about challenging the transatlantic relationship or aligning with China against the US. Rather, it reflects a pragmatic assessment of what Europe must do to better protect the prosperity and security of its population. From Madrid’s perspective, that requires more than defensive de-risking. It requires building greater European capacity and engaging China in ways that expand Europe’s room for manoeuvre rather than narrow it.

China is not a marginal actor that Europe can afford to sideline. It is a central pillar of global industrial production, a key player in green technologies, and an indispensable partner in addressing global challenges. For Spain, therefore, the question is not whether to engage with China, but how to do so in a way that strengthens economic resilience and contributes to Europe’s broader strategic autonomy.

This pragmatism is rooted in Spain’s historical experience. Periods of closedness have coincided with stagnation, while openness to trade, investment and ideas has driven modernisation and growth. This legacy informs a clear preference: protectionism is not seen as a viable long-term strategy, but as a source of weakening.

At the same time, Spain is above all a committed European actor. The government fully supports the EU’s framework that defines China as partner, competitor and systemic rival, and participates in efforts to strengthen economic security. Spain does not seek to break ranks with Brussels; it aims to shape the EU’s China policy from within.

What Spain does question is the tendency to reduce Europe’s China debate to risk reduction alone. If the objective is to better protect prosperity and security, focusing only on reducing dependencies on China is too narrow and ultimately myopic. Strategic autonomy is not autarky. Europe will remain interdependent with the outside world, and its task is to manage those interdependencies in ways that reduce vulnerability while also creating leverage, resilience and opportunity.

In this context, Spain’s engagement with China is an attempt to recalibrate the current focus on ‘de-risking’ to a more effective approach that combines reactive and proactive initiatives: protecting critical sectors where necessary, but also investing, negotiating and cooperating where engagement can help Europe upgrade its capabilities.

Spain’s alternative is therefore not naïve openness, but structured and conditioned engagement. While it welcomes Chinese investment, especially in renewable energies and electric vehicles, to upgrade industrial capacity, it also recognises the risks associated with asymmetries, dependencies and industrial competition.

Yet the answer cannot be limited to retreat. Europe also needs to seize the opportunities that China offers, especially in sectors where Spain and the EU can gain scale, technology, market access or greater relevance in global value chains. If Europe wants to protect its prosperity and security over the long term, it must become more capable and more strategically indispensable, not simply less exposed.

It is precisely because of these concerns and opportunities that engagement must be accompanied by clear expectations.

Sánchez’s dialogue with Chinese leadership places him in a good position not only to convey European concerns directly, but also to explore openings that could make the relationship more balanced and productive. His message in Beijing was not of unconditional cooperation. Rather, it stressed the need for a relationship with China that enhances reciprocity, strengthens resilience and reduces the appeal of more protectionist approaches inside the EU.

In the future, there are several areas where such progress could take shape, and it is very likely that they have been discussed by Sánchez and Xi.

First, ensuring stable access to critical inputs is essential. Avoiding export restrictions on rare earths and magnets for European partners would reduce supply-chain uncertainty and build trust.

Secondly, Beijing needs to address the concerns raised by the European business community. This would send a strong signal. Issues related to market access, regulatory transparency and level playing field conditions remain central. Improvements here would demonstrate China’s commitment to reciprocity.

Third, opening the services sector to European companies represents a major opportunity. Europe, and Spain in particular, holds competitive advantages in areas such as insurance, health, tourism, engineering and logistics.

Finally, the broader geopolitical context cannot be ignored. Europe’s security environment is shaped by Russia’s war in Ukraine, and China’s position is closely watched. Greater Chinese engagement to help end the conflict in a way acceptable to the invaded party would have a significant positive impact in Europe.

Spain’s frequent visits to China reflect an effort to preserve room for manoeuvre, diversify partnerships, and contribute to a more balanced and autonomous European position. For the Spanish Government and regions, engaging with China is not an alternative to protecting Europe’s security and prosperity; it is part of how that protection should be pursued, provided it is guided by the principles of reciprocity, realism and clear European interests.

Whether this approach becomes a broader European paradigm will depend on the evolution of China’s own policies as much as on Madrid’s capacity to persuade other capitals. Productive engagement must ultimately be built on a two-way street.

La entrada Why Spain chooses engagement with China se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

• Immigration from Asia is relatively minor in Spain, something that sets it apart from other European countries, where this type of migration constitutes one of the most numerous. The population of Chinese origin accounts for a third of all Asian immigrants to Spain, followed by Pakistanis.
• In terms of educational attainment levels, Asian immigration occupies an intermediate position between its Latin American and African counterparts, with a major difference in favour of women.
• The activity rate among Chinese male and female immigrants is extremely high, unlike among women of Indian and especially Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin, the overwhelming majority (75%) of whom are neither employed nor seeking work. The unemployment rate among the entire group is very low, whether due to the inactivity of women from the Indian sub-continent or the high rate of occupation among Chinese immigrants.
• There is a pronounced concentration of Asian immigrants in the retailing and hospitality sectors, significantly higher than among other immigrant groups or native-born Spaniards.
• Almost half of Asian immigrants in work are self-employed or entrepreneurs, a feature that is unique to this group. This fact and their sectoral concentration reflect a pronounced degree of occupational isolation on the part of the Asian community, especially the Chinese.
• Although 15% of such immigrants have been granted Spanish nationality, their presence in the public sector is virtually nil.
• The educational drop-out rate among young people aged 16-20 originating from Asia is high, at 23%, but substantially lower than among Latin American and African migrants (34% and 35% respectively).

Analysis

This paper is the fourth in a series the Elcano Royal Institute is conducting into how immigrants are integrating into Spain’s employment market. The first, titled ‘Immigration and the labour market in Spain’, analysed the entire immigrant population and its most salient characteristics in terms of its relationship with the employment market, while its two successors scrutinised Latin American and African groups respectively. The present analysis focuses on immigrants from Asia, a group dominated by the Chinese-born population.

As with the other papers in this series, the main sources used are the Continuous Municipal Register (Padrón Continuo de Población), the Continuous Population Statistics (Estadística Continua de Población) and the Active Population Survey (Encuesta de Población Activa, EPA –EPA microdata for the fourth quarter of 2024–), all compiled by the National Statistics Institute (INE). Based on such data, the analysis focuses on the fundamental features of Asian immigration in Spain, and subsequently sets out information regarding its integration into the employment market, for both the whole group and the two subgroups whose sample size in the EPA enables statistically significant results to be obtained: Chinese immigrants and those who come from Hindustan or the Indian sub-continent.[1]

The context: size, evolution, composition and characteristics of Asian immigration in Spain

As mentioned in the other papers in this series, it is worth recalling the definition of international migrants used by the United Nations Population Division: all those who live in a country other than where they were born, regardless of their legal status in the country where they live. Thus, defined as ‘born abroad’, according to the most recent aggregate data from the INE’s Continuous Population Statistics, the total number of Asian immigrants in Spain on 1 January 2025 stood at 616,222 (Figure 1), accounting for 1% of all those resident in the country and 7% of the immigrant population. Their presence has been on the rise since the end of the 20^th century, when traditional but small Philippine and Indian communities were joined by growing Chinese immigration. Since the mid-1990s, Chinese immigration has constituted the main Asian diaspora with a presence in Spain.

Currently, based on data for 1 January 2025, Chinese immigration accounts for 34% of all Asian immigration (209,320 people) (Figure 2), followed by Pakistani (135,696) and Indian (73,951) immigration. These last two groups have undergone significant growth in the last 10 years, doubling their size. Among the rest of the Asian-origin population, the only community that exceeds 30,000 members is the one originating from the Philippines (60,756).

Virtually all the Asian-origin immigration in Spain comes from low per-capita income countries, with the presence of those from wealthy countries, such as Japan, South Korea, Israel and Taiwan being minimal. And as in the case of all immigration from countries with lower per-capita income than Spain’s, the age distribution is skewed towards groups with higher rates of employment activity, aged 25-49, where more than half of all individuals (55%) are located (Figure 3).

As in the case of African immigration, although to a lesser extent, there is a masculine predominance in overall Asian immigration (55%), but with major differences between the main source countries: whereas in immigration from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India the percentage of men reaches levels similar to those observed among African immigrants (74%, 71% and 63% respectively), immigration from the Philippines and China shows a female preponderance (65% and 54%).

The largest concentration of Asian immigrants in Spain is found in Catalonia (Figure 4), and more specifically the province of Barcelona, where a significant presence of people is recorded originating from the main source countries. Madrid is the province with the second largest presence of Asian immigrants, but attributable in this case to Chinese and Philippine immigrants, with modest numbers of Indian and Pakistani immigrants. As is the case with immigration in general, the presence of Asian immigrants in large areas to the west of the peninsula is negligible.

Asian immigrants’ integration into the Spanish labour market

Based on the EPA microdata (4^th quarter of 2024), the main features that characterise the mode and intensity of Asian immigrants’ integration into the Spanish employment market are set out in what follows. The data refer to individuals aged 25-59, with the goal of excluding youths still in training and adults already retired from the employment market, thereby forming a group that is comparable to their native counterparts (defined as being born in Spain to two parents who were also born in Spain), among whom occupational activity is extremely low outside this age range. The data are also compared with those of immigrants originating from other countries with per-capita incomes lower than Spain’s[2] and they are similarly broken down internally in order to obtain a comparison of the two Asian sub-groups whose sample size in the EPA is sufficiently large to derive a statistically significant comparison and which jointly account for 82% of the total: immigrants from China and the Indian sub-continent (the combined total of Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis).

One factor on which employment integration depends is educational attainment level, an area where Asian immigrants aged 25-59 occupy an intermediate position between their Latin American and African counterparts (Figure 5). Although 2% of Asian immigrants are illiterate, at the other end of the spectrum 26% possess a higher education qualification. Data for the educational attainment levels of immigrants from the Indian sub-continent reflect a higher level in general than that of immigrants originating from China. Internally, despite the reduced size of the sub-samples of Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, significant differences are observable in favour of the Indians.

Both among Chinese immigrants and those from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh there is an education gap in favour of women (Figure 6): the percentage of women with a university qualification is much higher than among men.

With regard to the activity and employment rates,[3] the data relating to Asian immigrants aged 25-59 as a whole reveal higher figures than those observed in the case of African immigrants, but lower than those relating to Latin American immigrants. Such total figures conceal a major internal difference between the two Asian sub-groups, however: whereas Chinese immigrants display an activity rate identical to the native population and a higher rate of employment (Figure 7), the figures are much lower in the case of immigrants from the Indian sub-continent.

The low activity rate among immigrants from the Indian sub-continent is attributable to its female component’s very low participation in the employment market (Figure 8), at just 25%. Despite their superior education, the difference with the male activity rate is 67 percentage points, a much larger gap than that found amongst any other immigrant group in Spain. By contrast, 89% of female Chinese immigrants in Spain are either in work or are actively seeking work, a higher percentage than both their male peers and native Spanish women.

The high employment rate among Chinese immigrants (both male and female) together with the low activity rate among women from the Indian sub-continent account for the low unemployment rate among Asian workers in general, namely 5% (Figure 9), a lower percentage than the native population and technically equivalent to full employment.

Asian immigrants aged 25-59 are employed overwhelmingly in two sectors: retailing (mainly on a small scale, both in food and non-specialised items) and hospitality. The two sectors account for three quarters (74%) of workers originating from Asia (Figure 10), almost four times the figure for native Spaniards. This occupational clustering is even more pronounced in the case of Chinese immigrants (83% work in retailing and hospitality). Outside these two sectors, and apart from a minor participation in the manufacturing sector, immigrants from China and the Indian sub-continent differentiate themselves with a greater presence amongst the former in professional and scientific activities and amongst the latter in the agricultural and construction sectors.

Asian immigration in its totality accounts for only 1.3% of the total working population in Spain, but it is proportionally much more prominent in retailing and hospitality (see Figure 11). Owing to the concentration of female Philippine immigrants in domestic activities, this is another sector in which the participation of Asian-origin immigrants exceeds the aforementioned 1.3% of all those working in Spain. The EPA does not record any Chinese immigrants employed in domestic service.

In terms of occupational situation, the Asian community’s profile is by some distance the most singular of all those scrutinised. First, as many as 47% work for themselves (Figure 12), whether as self-employed workers or as entrepreneurs with employees, which is more than three times the proportion of native Spaniards and more than four times that of Latin Americans and Africans. These figures are even higher for Chinese immigrants, where those who work for themselves outnumber those who work for others by a factor of almost two. It is highly likely that a large proportion of those who work for others are in turn employed by entrepreneurs from the same geographical origins, although this possibility, which emerges from anecdotal evidence, cannot be confirmed by the existing databases. This scenario, combined with a virtually non-existent presence in the public sector, points to the Asian community’s pronounced occupational isolation, and the Chinese community’s in particular.

More than two-thirds of Asian workers resident in Spain (68.5%) hold posts in the ‘hospitality, personal and protection services and salespeople’ category (Figure 13), whereas those employed in ‘basic occupations’ are restricted to 9%, a much lower figure than the other two large groups of immigrants originating from regions with lower per-capita income than Spain’s, namely Latin America and Africa.

Asian immigrants coincide with their Latin American and African counterparts in being underrepresented in the ‘white collar’ occupations. In the case of Asians, these occupations are dominated by those originating from China, India and the Philippines, with no detectable presence of other source countries in the EPA. As in the case of African immigrants, Asian immigrants are completely absent from the armed forces, where Spanish nationality is a precondition for recruitment. Only 15% of all Asian-origin immigrants in Spain (in the 25-59 age group) have Spanish nationality. The percentage is much higher in the exceptional case of Philippine immigrants (for all age groups), at 33%, because those born in the Philippines, like Latin Americans, Andorrans, Portuguese, Equatorial Guineans and Sephardic Jews, are exempted from the rule that in general requires a legal minimum of 10 years’ residence prior to applying for citizenship. But even here, the relatively easy route to gaining citizenship does not translate into a presence in the Spanish public administration or the armed forces.

With regard to Asian immigrants’ earned incomes, the statistics published by the Social Security Administration (TGSS),[4] which is the sole source available and that include only data relating to people of Chinese nationality, reveal two striking facts. First, the average taxable income of Chinese taxpayers in 2025 was just €1,538, a figure that is lower than that of the citizens from the six Latin American countries included in the TGSS statistics and of Moroccans, despite the non-existent presence of Chinese people in ‘basic occupations’, which are those that generally earn the lowest salaries. Meanwhile, the gender wage gap in favour of men is only €20 (Figure 14), easily the lowest of all the differentiated nationalities, including Spaniards. The reason underlying both anomalies is likely to be the very high proportion of entrepreneurs and self-employed workers among the Chinese community who, unlike wage-earning workers, have a degree of flexibility in reducing their declared taxable income. In this case, a lower level of declared taxable income does not therefore necessarily entail a lower real income.

Lastly, the educational statistics for Asian immigrants belonging to generation 1.5 (those who came to Spain as children or teenagers) mean that a gradual improvement in this community’s occupational integration and diversification is foreseeable. The educational drop-out rate among young people from Asia aged 16-20 is 23%, in an intermediate position between native Spaniards’ 15% and the 34% and 35% recorded by Latin Americans and Africans respectively (Figure 15). On the other hand, unlike the other groups, there is no gender gap in the drop-out statistics. The EPA sample of youngsters in this age group classified by origin (Chinese or from the Indian sub-continent) is too small to obtain significant results. In this case, the anecdotal evidence from Spain seems to suggest a lower educational drop-out rate and, in general, greater educational success among Chinese immigrants belonging to generation 1.5 or the second generation –compared with the average among other Asians, Latin Americans and Africans– but the EPA sample is too small to confirm this.

Conclusions

Asian immigration in Spain constitutes a very small part of the total, namely 7%, in clear contrast to the migratory picture in the centre and north of Europe (Germany, the UK, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, etc), where Asian immigrants form the largest group among their non-European counterparts. Spain does not have a major colonial past in Asia (barring the Philippines), whereas this colonial legacy explains in good measure the influx of large numbers of Asian immigrants to the UK and the Netherlands since the mid-20^th century. Nor does Spain attract immigration from Turkey, the source of a significant proportion of immigration to the centre of Western Europe. When Turkish migration towards Europe started to take off in the 1960s, it coincided with a wave of outward migration from Spain, in other words with a phase in which Spain not only failed to attract but even shed population through migration. Lastly, asylum has been a relatively minor source of inbound migration into Spain, in contrast to countries in Northern and Central Europe, which have run asylum systems that have been fed essentially by Asian populations. When the asylum system in Spain started to take in considerable numbers, asylum-seekers of Asian origin proved to be a small minority compared with Latin Americans.

The educational attainment level of Asian immigrants in Spain as a group is intermediate between that of Latin Americans and Africans, featuring significant internal diversity and greater education among women. The activity rate is extremely high in the case of males and also in the case of Chinese women, but very low in the case of women from the Indian sub-continent, despite their relatively high educational attainment level.

There is a highly pronounced sectoral concentration of Asian immigration in retailing and hospitality, where the majority of Asian-origin immigrants work as entrepreneurs or as self-employed. This position in the employment market –with its emphasis on self-employment– is another of the major idiosyncrasies of Asian-origin immigration. It may be said that this immigrant population has created its own employment ‘niche’, which also translates into its negligible presence in other sectors that traditionally employ immigrants, such as construction and agriculture (in which Pakistani but not Chinese immigrants are employed) or in domestic service (where the Asian presence is restricted to Philippine workers). Asian immigration is also virtually absent from public-sector employment.

With a relatively low educational drop-out rate (in comparison with that of Latin American and African immigrants), the future employment integration of today’s young Asian immigrants is probably heading towards greater sectoral diversification. Be that as it may, in light of the small sample sizes for the various sub-groups (Chinese, Pakistanis, Indians and so on) in the EPA, the information in this regard makes it difficult to draw categorical conclusions.

[1] Although the Indian subcontinent or Hindustan geographically comprises India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, the sample that is referred to here as ‘Hindustanis’ is made up only of Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, given the absence of immigrants from other countries in the EPA sample.

[2] The ‘Asian’ category in this analysis includes all those immigrants originating from the continent whose countries or territories of origin are included in the EPA, with the exception of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia and Israel, who barely account for 4% of the Asian sample in the 25-59 age range. For more detailed information about the characteristics of these groupings see the ARI titled ‘Immigration and the labour market in Spain’.

[3] The activity rate is defined as the percentage of the population within the age range in question (in this case aged 25-59) that is either in work or is looking for work, while the employment rate is defined as the percentage of the population within the age range in question (in this case aged 25-59) that is employed. The unemployment rate is calculated on the basis of the total active population in this age range (not the total population in the age range).

[4] The EPA does not include questions about earnings, making it necessary to resort to the Social Security Administration’s statistics on average taxable income, where individuals are classified by nationality, not by country of birth. The maximum taxable income in 2025 is €4,909/month.

La entrada Immigration and the labour market in Spain (IV): Asian immigration se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.