Business News & Financial News

Spanish economy 20th October 2026

770,000 employed people are left in poverty after paying for housing

According to a study published this Tuesday by Oxfam Intermón, after covering monthly housing expenses, 770,000 employed people cross the poverty threshold—their income does not reach 60% of the median, indicating that they have significantly lower economic resources than average for society as a whole—joining the 2.2 million people who were already in this situation even before facing rent or mortgage payments. The report reveals that housing costs raise the…

European economy 20th October 2026

Riots fuel France’s risk premium, hitting highs not seen since 2012

The recent escalation of social tension in France, featuring an intense wave of protests and riots over the high cost of living, has ultimately dealt a direct hit to market confidence in the country’s sovereign debt. The spread between the yield on the 10-year French bond and the German bund (France’s risk premium) has surged to near 148 basis points. This is a peak level not seen since 2012, during…

World economy 15th October 2026

IMF warns: “China needs to spend more; the United States, save more; and Europe, invest more”

The Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, has warned that the global economy’s resilience is reaching its limit, which is why countries urgently need to fix their public finances—as “winter is coming”—as well as address growing global imbalances, for which “China needs to spend more; the United States, save more; and Europe, invest more.” At a press conference in Bangkok during the IMF and World Bank…

rosa garcia consejera caixabank acerinox ence

“Many companies complicate CSRD implementation more than necessary”

Rosa Mª García Piñeiro, board member at Caixabank, Acerinox, and Ence—serving as chair of the sustainability committee for the latter two and as a committee member at Caixabank—explains that “the directive does not set the materiality threshold. The company decides it based on its own criteria. There is nothing in the legislation that prescribes what is material and what is not. The auditor-verifier may have one opinion, the company may…

“We are one of Europe’s leading R&D investors: €1.45 billion last year”

“We need to approach negotiations with the U.S. on terms that are completely different from those currently being proposed”

Says Antonio Bonet, president of the Club of Spanish Exporters and Investors. He points out that “Europe has a single tariff applied by all member states, but the U.S. applies a tariff to each country, meaning it can decide that the tariff applied to Spanish black olives is higher than that for Italian olives, as it did at one point. So there is a part of the negotiation between Europe…

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