Eurostat, the European statistical office, estimates that Spain is as far from the European average per capita income as it was in 1999, 25 years ago, according to the newspaper El Mundo today.
Progress since then has been zero, measured in terms of Gross Domestic Product per capita and purchasing power. It’s not that Spanish income hasn’t grown in this first quarter of a century. Eurostat estimates it at €27,770 in 2024, but that of several countries has grown more in real terms.
Eurostat estimates that, thanks to stronger growth than other European economies, Spanish per capita income measured in purchasing power will rise to 92% of the European average, one point higher than in 2023 and increasingly far from the 88% it fell to after the pandemic, which made it eligible for the Cohesion Fund again, falling below 90%. Spain thus remains outside the top ten countries that exceed the average and ranks 14th out of 27, two places worse than in 1999. In that year, according to a subsequent update by Eurostat following the major enlargement to the East, Spain was the same distance from the average, but in 12th place.
During this period, there have been ups and downs: Spain came close to the average in the final years of José María Aznar and even surpassed it in the first years of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, finally achieving, apparently, the dream of convergence. But it was a mirage.
