The biggest problem for Spanish olive trees is neither costs nor climate change: it is ‘ghost oil’

Something smells bad in the olive oil market. We knew it for a long timebut it is now with the collapse of prices at source (almost 46%) that everyone has become nervous. The figures do not add up and the bill will not be paid by the large olive oil groups, but by the small producers.

For this reason, on June 15, a COAG representative stood in front of the microphones and reported that 81% of olive oil Tunisian was entering Spain undercover. But how do you put 65,500 tons of oil under the radar? It has not been easy to determine, the truth is.

But if the organization is right, the oil ship has more than one leak compromising its future.

But it doesn’t have it. Always according to the COAGa good part of that oil comes from Portugal. But the ‘Portuguese way’ does not add up: with the data from the 2024-2025 campaign, Portugal produces between 160,000 and 195,000 tons of its own and imported only 3,406 of Tunisian oil. Those 3,406 tons cannot explain the 131,877 that it re-exports to Spain. Some part yes, but not all of it.

And then?

The problem seems different. It looks like ours, in fact. Because what COAG does seem to be right about is that a good part of the oil that entered the country did so under a special regime: that of active development. It is a formula of the Customs Code of the European Union that allows the importation of non-EU merchandise without tariffs or VAT as long as it is transformed and exported again.

What the producers point out is that a good part of the oil that arrives in Spain to be “perfected” ends up being sold in the country without appearing in the statistics (marked, in fact, as community).

The consumer does not notice it substantially in the price, but it is noticeable at the source. And a lot.

But there is more. A few years ago, honey became a problem. Nobody really knew what they were eating in Europe. The key to this was to mix it up. Above all, because with completely insufficient regulation, it was enough to put “mix” so that there was nothing more to ask.

This was attempted to be resolved with Directive (EU) 2024/1438 (the “Breakfast Guidelines“) which has not come into force in Spain until June 14, 2026. Among many other things, Brussels demands that the package states where what is inside comes from. Easy, clean, effective and…

…non-existent for oil. The big problem, as almost always, is traceability. Not that we have problems, but that there is almost no real interest in doing it. As we have said many times, the Spanish agricultural market is a giant with feet of clay and now is the time to think if we want it to be something else.

In Xataka | Something strange is happening with the price of olive oil and farmers have just denounced it: there are up to 2.8 billion at stake