Spain

Spain was supposed to raise diesel in 2026. It was supposed

by

Almost no one buys diesel cars anymore. But the fact that the Government has a rise in this fuel on its hands is not good news. Firstly because, although almost no one buys it, many still own a diesel car. Second, because the vast majority of freight transportation continues to be diesel. The question now is: will we see the promised rise? What happens? That the deadline is over. Specifically, the one that the European Union gave to Spain to raise the price of diesel. The last one expired at the end of January and began in July of last year 2025. As you can imagine, Spain ignored its obligations and diesel is still subsidized. Consequently, Europe has asked our Government for explanations because they have also realized that the taxes on this fuel remain unchanged. The intention is that 2026 would be the year in which, once and for all, consumers of gasoline and diesel cars would pay the same taxes. 1.1 billion euros. This is not the first time that the European Union has given a serious warning to our country. The last one cost us 1.1 billion euros and opened this extension that expired in January. Then, Spain received 23.9 billion euros corresponding to the fifth tranche of aid provided by the European Union within the framework of the Next Generation funds. But that money would have been more if the country had complied with the obligation to raise the price of fuel (and a second related to employment). Something to which it has committed itself on various occasions to European officials but which it has also systematically failed to comply with. 2018. The issue of raising the cost of diesel for the end customer is not new by any means. In 2018, Teresa Rivera, then Minister of Ecological Transition, already made the Government’s position clear: “diesel’s days are numbered”he said at that time. Since then, a calendar has been opened from which the months have been falling but which always has one more page to discard. Three years laterthe hum picked up strength again. On that occasion it was the blows of the coronavirus crisis and the War in Ukraine that postponed the issue again. In 2024the new attempt came to nothing because the Tax Reform that contemplated the increase in diesel ended up falling. Last year, in the summer, was when the European Union rolled its eyes and gave Spain a new extension. The one that happened last January. How would it be done? The simplest procedure is to eliminate the bonus that diesel currently has in our country in the Special Tax on Hydrocarbons. Therefore, right now we pay the following depending on the fuel refueled on this section: Unleaded gasoline 98: 431.92 euros/1000 liters or 0.432 euros/liter. Unleaded gasoline 95: 400.69 euros/1000 liters or 0.401 euros/liter. Diesel: 307 euros/1000 liters or 0.307 euros/liter. To this section of the tax we must add the regional tax which, since 2019, has been linear at 7.02 cents/liters. This leaves us with a Special Tax on Hydrocarbons of: Unleaded gasoline 98: 0.504 euros/liter. Unleaded gasoline 95: 0.473 euros/liter. Diesel: 0.379 euros/liter. The objective would be to raise this section of taxes and equalize diesel and gasoline 95. That is, an increase of almost 10 cents/liter. The question is whether this increase would be suffered by all drivers of diesel cars, regardless of whether they are professionals or not, or whether the latter would be left out completely or partially. It will affect you. Raising diesel continues to be a very delicate issue in Spain. It is a fuel that has been rising and that has reduced its gap with gasoline in recent times. That, a political environment that has opted to criminalize this fuel and tough emissions regulations that They advise against its use if we repeat short journeyshave ended up sinking their sales. In January, only 4.5% of the market corresponded to diesel sales according to Anfac. The problem is that more than half of the Spanish vehicle fleet is still diesel cars. Added to this is a huge fleet of professionals who will make their products more expensive if they have to pay more for diesel. And it is that much of the inflation During the first months of the Ukrainian War it came hand in hand with rising fuel prices. And to that we must add that in those days the Government had to face a transport strike due to the increase in fuel prices, which ended up being solved with a general bonus to all drivers. Photo | Ministry of the Presidency, Government of Spain on Wikimedia and Raymond Okoro In Xataka | The “best mechanic in Spain” says that low-cost gasoline is of worse quality than premium gasoline. The reality is much more complex

Spain is letting the lisp die in Andalusia without knowing that the /θ/ sound is a global rarity that we are losing

by

In recent days, the University of Granada has presented a macroatlas with almost half a million audios that shows how the way of speaking of Andalusians has changed. The research is very interesting for many reasons, but today I want to focus on something specific: the slow, but inexorable agony of lisp. What is lisp. While the distinction between ‘s”https://www.xataka.com/”z’ and seseo gains ground in the south, lisping is losing speakers in the only place where lisping is used. It is a sociological question, yes: researchers are clear that stigma is the main force against this phonetic subsystem. But there is something else Because, in reality, what we are seeing is not just the death of the lisp, it is the end of the sound (θ) itself: one of the most unknown oddities of the Spanish language. A Spanish oddity? Although it is not something that is often explained much, the ‘c’ sound (/θ/) is relatively rare in the world — only in 43 of 566 languages ​​(7.6%) in the world. WALS sampling appears and only in 4% of the counts in typological databases (UPSID: 3.99%; PHOIBLE: ~4%). That is, very few living languages ​​have that sound among their phonetic repertoires. To give us an idea, the phoneme of the ñ (ɲ), quintessence of Spanish, appears in 35% of the world’s languages. But… what about the ‘c’? The usual explanation Why (θ)/(ð) are less frequent and why they are disappearing is simple: they are “soft” fricatives; That is, they are less strident sounds than (s)/(z) and, therefore, have less perceptual salience. This is what makes them tend to be lost or transformed easily over time. That does not mean that the Spaniard of the future is going to be sesante; but there is a high probability that it is sesante. The heritage of a language in the trash. It is clear that it cannot be argued from a philological point of view that the disappearance of (θ) is a bad thing. The Earth turns, languages ​​change. But it is striking that in a society in which historical heritage continues to be “valued”, the progressive loss of a sound does not set off alarm bells. And that it does so because we are not capable of accepting the diversity of our own language, normalizing it and defending it in the public sphere, is perhaps worse. Image | Wiebrig Krakau (Modified) In Xataka | “The most serious attack since there is memory”: Pérez-Reverte has started a crusade against the RAE from within the RAE

Spain is not one of them

by

Compare the salary you earn with that of a worker in Luxembourg and it is likely that the difference left you speechless. Europe is a continent that shares a currency, a single market and open borders, but where salaries tell very different stories depending on the country. where you live and work. Visual Capitalist has prepared a graph that represents the weighted salaries of different countries in Europe based on the most recent data from Eurostat and the oecd. The graph shows an uncomfortable reality. Despite sharing many common regulatory elements, within the European Union, the average annual salary can be multiplied by more than five depending on the country in which you live. A simple graph, but it reflects a reality sculpted by decades of economic, historical and geopolitical differences. A stocking that is not what it seems Before going into figures, it is worth understanding what exactly Eurostat measures when talking about salary in this map. The indicator used by Eurostat and the OECD to compile this statistic is called “adjusted average full-time salary per employee” and does not reflect what most workers earn. In reality, what it represents is a weighted average that takes the total salaries paid in a country and divides it by the number of full-time equivalent employees. In other words, if many workers in a country work part-time, those hours are converted to their full-time equivalent before calculating the average. That means that the resulting number tends to be higher than the most common salary in that country, the one received by the real majority of workers. Although it is not a “literal” representation of what the majority of the country’s workers earn, this data is a useful tool for comparing countries with each other. However, it must be taken for what it is: a statistical photograph, not the exact reflection of the salary you receive at the end of the month. The countries in which they charge the most In 2024, the adjusted average annual full-time salary in the European Union stood at 39,800 euros. That represents an increase of 5.2% compared to 37,800 euros registered in 2023. Above that average the same names as always stand out clearly. Luxembourg tops the European ranking with an average annual full-time salary of almost 83,000 euros, driven by its powerful financial and technology sector. In fact, the Grand Duchy not only has the highest salaries in Europe, they are also from the world. Iceland occupies second place with just over 77,000 euros annually, and Switzerland is in third with 75,100 euros, also being the country with the largest population among the first three. Next, the Scandinavians Denmark and Norway appear with 71,600 euros and 64,025 euros respectively, completing the leading group. A simple glance is enough to realize that the Nordic and Western European countries clearly dominate the top of the table. Belgium, Austria, Germany and Finland also exceed the European average of 39,800 euros, while the Scandinavian countries maintain a constant presence among the best paid thanks to its collective bargaining models and its robust welfare states. The gap between East and West The graph of Visual Capitalist A fracture that separates the west and north from the east and south of the continent is evident, at least as far as salaries are concerned. At the lower end of the ranking are Bulgaria, with salaries of just 15,387 euros per year, Greece with 17,954 euros and Hungary with 18,461 euros. Poland, another large economy in the Eastern European bloc, records an average of 21,246 euros per year. The salary gap between Luxembourg and Bulgaria exceeds 67,500 euros annually, a gap that is no coincidence. The legacy of the Soviet bloc left weakened economies decades behind in investment, productivity and industrial infrastructure. Although countries such as Poland and the Baltic States have closed the gap by modernizing their economies in recent years, the Actual convergence with the west remains a slow process. Spain: above average… in the south Spain occupies an intermediate salary position, although it remains below the EU salary average. In 2024, the adjusted average full-time salary reached 33,700 euros gross per year, which represents an increase of 4.6% compared to the 32,216 euros recorded in 2023. Still, that number is 6,100 euros below the European average of 39,800 euros, and a considerable distance from Germany, which reaches 53,751 euros, or France with 43,790 euros annually. Where Spain does maintain a relatively comfortable position is in comparison with its southern European neighbors. For example, it surpasses Italy (33,523 euros), Portugal (24,818 euros) and clearly distances itself from Greece and Bulgaria. The sustained growth of Minimum Interprofessional Wage In recent years it has contributed to raise the salary floor since Spain will not remain in the rear of the eurozone economies, although the distance with the countries of the north and west is still notable. In Xataka | Good news, salaries in Spain are rising: the problem is that if you are young you probably don’t know it Image | Visual Capitalist

Mercadona has become the great supermarket in Spain. Now it is becoming your big restaurant

by

On Saturday, at the gym door, I heard a group of friends talking about going out to eat. The debate ended when one of them proposed going to Mercadona and buying some hamburgers in the section ‘Ready to Eat’. From then on the talk went from focusing on ‘where to buy’ to ‘where to eat’: in the supermarket itself, on the beach (advantages of living in Galicia) or in a house. It could be a simple anecdote, if it weren’t for the fact that that conversation between colleagues at the exit of a gym hides something else: Mercadona is becoming the great food supplier from Spain. And it is so to such an extent that it no longer only rivals the rest of the retailbut with the bars, whose pulse is doubling. A percentage: 19.7%. A few weeks ago the consulting firm Worldpanel by Numerator (formerly Kantar) published a report which helps to understand the enormous weight that Mercadona has achieved, not only in the retail homeland, but in the food sector in general: the Valencian chain accounts for a 19.7% share of value in food and beverage consumption. That means it receives almost 20% of what we spend on food and drink, both inside and outside the home. Company-Collective Value share in food and drink consumption Mercadona 19.7% Bar+Cafeteria+Terraces 11.2% Independent Restaurants 8.6% T. Carrefour 6% Lidl 5.1% Quick Service Restaurant 3.4% G. Eroski 3.1% DAY 2.8% consumption 2.7% Alcampo 2% ALDI 1.4% Full-Service Restaurant 0.9% Why is it important? Because that percentage shows that Mercadona already sells as much or more food than traditional hospitality, at least in terms of value. The Worldpanel by Numerator report shows that bars, cafes and terraces account for a value share in food and beverages of around 11.2% and independent restaurants another 8.6%. Together they add up to 19.8%. That last percentage surpasses Mercadona by only one tenth. The list is completed by Carrefour, which accounts for 6%, Lidl (5.1%), the concept of Quick Service Restaurant (3.4%), G. Eroski (3.1%), DIA (2.8%) and Consum (2.7%). A half surprise. That Mercadona accounts for 19.7% of what we Spaniards spend on food is striking, but in reality it is hardly surprising. The data is explained by two trends that seem to move in opposite directions. The first is that we eat more and more at home. According to The Economistspending on food outside the home fell 2.2% last year. Domestic consumption increased, however, by half a point, 0.6%. Mercadona has been able to anticipate this scenario and has been betting heavily on its ‘Ready to Eat’ section since 2018, a section in which it offers already prepared dishes, from starters to sandwiches, stews, paella, lentils, meatballs, pasta… In December the chain had implemented the service in more than 1,110 stores. Nothing surprising if you take into account that Juan Roig, the owner of the company, assures that kitchens will eventually disappear from homes. Expanding your footprint. Mercadona is not only gaining strength as a competitor to the traditional hospitality industry (a sector that faces its own internal challenges, such as the menu of the day crisis), it also does so within the sector of retail. The Valencian chain has been leading it for some time, but that has not prevented it from continuing to expand its domain. The Worldpanel report also reflects that in 2025 the company consolidated its position in food distribution, increasing its share in 0.6 percentage points until they monopolize 27% of the entire ‘pie’. Go for the baskets. Carrefour is followed in the ranking, with a share of 9%, although the French firm experienced a decline of 0.7 percentage points, Lidl (6.9%), Grupo Eroski (4.3%), Dia (3.8%), Consum (3.6%), Alcampo (2.8%) and Aldi (2%). One of the keys that has allowed Mercadona to reinforce its leadership is the increase in the so-called “large baskets”, that is, purchases of the week or month, which concentrate household spending on its shelves. In 2025, Roig’s company reached a 42% share in this type of operations, 0.9% more than in 2024. Another of its advantages is the white label push in the sector of retail and the growing weight of “short assortment chains”, those with a limited supply and very focused on prices. Images | Wikipedia and K8 (Unsplash) In Xataka | We knew that Mercadona was making gold from its suppliers. Now we know the million-dollar toll that this entails.

Spain had a completely saturated electrical grid. And then data centers arrived to blow it up even more

by

Imagine a highway on which not a single vehicle can fit anymore. But the problem is not that there is a lack of asphalt, but that the cars do not know how to drive efficiently and keep kilometer-long safety distances. The Spanish electrical grid was exactly that. It had been operating for years at the limit of its administrative capacity, and suddenly, a convoy of trucks of industrial tonnage and voracious appetite has arrived at the access ramp: data centers. These megainfrastructures, pillars of artificial intelligence and the cloud, promise to water the economy of millions, but their brutal need for supply threatened to burst the seams of an already saturated electrical system. To avoid collapse and not let the reindustrialization train escape, the Government has had to react and radically change the technical rules of the game. Cascading capacity collapse. To understand the collapse we have to look at how our way of consuming energy has changed. The energy transition is profoundly reconfiguring the model throughout the national territory. Requests to connect to transportation and distribution networks have skyrocketed. In addition to the electrification of industry and renewable hydrogen, there is now massive consumption associated with data centers for artificial intelligence. The problem broke out when the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) established a “dynamic criterion” to calculate how much access capacity was available in the areas shared by several network nodes. As detailed by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO) in his press releaseapplying this criterion means that a single access requested at a node can cause a “cascading effect that drains capacity in the rest of the nodes that share the area”, blocking requests from dozens of kilometers away. Basically, a large data center asks for passage and, automatically, the system administratively blocks neighboring nodes as a precaution, even if physically the cables have plenty of space. Investments in the air and the ghost of the blackout. The consequences of this traffic jam directly affect the real economy and national security. Real estate and industrial paralysis. The situation is so critical that, as we already mentioned in our previous coverage citing the Asprima employers’ associationlast year only 12% of connection requests for new urban developments were granted. There are 350,000 homes at risk simply due to lack of electrical power. The risk of an electrical “zero”. The Official State Gazette warns that the increase in installations that are not able to withstand “tension gaps” poses a very high risk. If there is a disturbance and these generators are massively disconnected, exchange flows are produced that are incompatible with Spain’s limited interconnections with Europe. As the diary recalls The Countrythe objective is to avoid at all costs a repeat of massive blackouts like the one suffered by the Iberian Peninsula on April 28, 2025. It is not enough to put more cables. In areas limited by this dynamic criterion, it is no longer possible to enable new capacity simply by investing money in reinforcing the network with “more copper.” The expert in the sector Joaquín Coronado sums it up perfectly: the demand must be 100% active; It must provide flexibility and commit to the stability of the system. The Government’s emergency surgery. To unclog this Gordian knot, the Government and regulators have launched a three-way shock plan: The new Royal Decree of MITECO. The Ministry has been brought to public hearing (until March 16) a standard that updates the technical requirements to connect to the network. The master key is that now it is required that the demands “withstand voltage gaps”, do not introduce adverse oscillations and maintain the quality of the wave. By forcing installations not to disconnect in the event of small disturbances, the number of nodes affected in shared areas is reduced. This simple technical measure could bring out 50% more capacity in about 900 knots of connection to the high-voltage network. The “flexible permits” of the CNMC. To put an end to the binary model (either I give you all the capacity or I deny it), the CNMC has proposed four new types of permits, as we already broke down in Xataka. These range from allowing consumption only in certain time slots, to “dynamic” permissions where the operator can remotely disconnect a data center if there is an emergency on the network. The “technical amnesty” for data giants. In parallel, the Ministry of Industry has been urgently removed the “off-peak” requirement. Previously, to receive aid, you had to consume at night, an absurdity for a data center (which operates 24/7) and for today’s Spain, where solar energy has brought down prices at midday. The citizen cost and the fine print. The Government’s maneuver not only responds to a national emergency, but also places Spain as a pioneer on the continent. The country is anticipating the update of the European network codes, deploying a battery of technical specifications simultaneously that is already considered a milestone worldwide, as detailed The Country. In this deployment, the new regulations also settle a historical debt with energy storage: batteries will finally have their own specific regulatory framework, no longer being administratively treated as simple “generation by analogy” facilities. However, this deep digitalization so that the network supports such a complex mode of operation will not come for free, and the bill for modernization will end up looming in the consumer’s pocket. Forecasts for 2026 They already estimate direct increases in citizen receipts, with a 4% increase in tolls and a not inconsiderable 10.5% in electricity system charges. And while citizens assume the technical cost, the data giants – recipients of this regulatory red carpet – prefer to remain cautious in the face of the eternal Spanish bureaucratic obstacle. The technology sector warns that a key piece of the puzzle is missing: If the Government does not expressly include the National Code of Economic Activity (CNAE) corresponding to “Data Processing” in the official list of sectors entitled to receive the million-dollar electro-intensive aid, all … Read more

The F-35 cannot be hacked like an iPhone. The explanation is the same why Spain and Europe cannot go to war without the US.

by

There was a moment, probably towards the end of the Cold War, when the concept of Western military superiority stopped being measured solely in tons of steel or number of divisions and began to depend more and more on lines of code, networks and invisible architectures. As the decades passed, that technological transformation redefined not only how war is fought, but who really has control of the tools with which war is waged. Europe is realizing that that train has missed it. The jailbreak myth. Last year we already have that the possibility of an “off” button on the American F-35 it wasn’t exactly like that. Now, the comparison launched last week by the Dutch minister when suggesting that the fighter could “break free” like an iPhone It simplifies to the absurdity what is, in reality, a combat system defined by software and armored by cryptographic architecture. The F-35 is not designed for the operator to modify its code, but only to run software authenticated by keyscontrolled supply chains and closed validation environments, which means that physically accessing the aircraft is not the same as controlling its system. It is therefore not a consumer device on which alternative applications are installed like those on a mobile phone, but rather a platform whose integrity depends on digital signaturestrusted hardware modules and a support infrastructure that validates each update before the aircraft executes it. ODIN and structural dependency. They remembered in the middle The Aviationist that the real core of the problem is not in “hacking” the plane, but in keeping it outside the American ecosystem that keeps it operational. The F-35 depends on ODINthe logistics and data network that manages maintenance, mission planning, software updates and threat files, all under the control of infrastructure and processes largely managed from the United States. Disconnecting it does not turn it off immediately, but it initiates a progressive loss of capabilities that transforms it from a fully integrated fifth-generation platform to a combat fighter that is increasingly less relevant in the face of modern threats. So yes, exactly the same as a phone that stops receiving critical patches and updates. The same European dependence. Curiously, or perhaps not so much, this logic does not end with the plane, but runs through the entire European military architecture. The Financial Times recalled this morning in a piece that tried to answer the big European questions, that the continent’s armies depend on American software, clouds and systems for secure communications, data analysis, command and control, intelligence and platform maintenance. We are talking about platforms with contracts that involve giants like Google, Microsoft or Palantir and fundamental systems such asl Lockheed Martin Aegis integrated into, for example, European ships. The European military commanders themselves they recognized in the report that an abrupt break would generate operational gaps, fragmentation and loss of effectiveness, because a good part of the digital “back-end” on which its capabilities rest is not under European sovereign control. Digital sovereignty vs reality. Now that Washington is going through a phase where the word “ally” does not fit to the profile, the political speeches that advocate accelerate technological sovereignty in defense they collide with a structural reality: replicating the entire ecosystem that supports platforms, networks, encryption, AI and cloud services is not as simple as moving servers to European soil or changing providers overnight. And it is not because data localization does not equate to real sovereignty when that same software, updates, cryptographic keys and interoperability depend on American supply chains and regulatory frameworks, and where European generals themselves warn that a hasty decoupling would put daily operations at risk. Same explanation. In the end, the F-35 can’t be hacked like an iPhone has the same explanation why Spain and Europe cannot aspire to full digital sovereignty or resort to a high-intensity war without the United States: the structural dependence of the North American technological ecosystem. In the air, that translates into a fighter whose effectiveness rests on updates, threat data and logistical support controlled from Washington. On the ground, in militaries that operate on digital infrastructures, critical software and command architectures deeply intertwined with American suppliers and standards. If you also want, it is not so much a question of political will, but rather of technical architecture: whoever controls the software, controls the capacity. Image | RawPixel In Xataka | “It’s not what we need”: Germany has just put the finishing touches on Spain’s great military dream, the European anti-F-35 is disappearing In Xataka | The Netherlands has just activated panic in Spain and the US allies: the F-35 can be “released” like an iPhone

The debate format that has been radicalizing opinions in the US for years. arrives in Spain. Xokas is its protagonist

by

The Galician streamer The Xokas sat opposite several ideological rivals in a debate produced and presented by Ibai Llanos on YouTube. The format, which draws directly from the Anglo-Saxon model popularized by Charlie Kirk and ‘Turning Point USA’, leaves open a few questions about the politicization of streaming entertainment and the risks of a genre that turns ideas into spectacle. The Xoqué? If you have been under a virtual rock in recent months and have no idea who El Xkoxas is, here are some facts: Gonzalo Pérez grew up like streamer during the pandemic years, the same period in which platforms like Twitch They multiplied their user base in Europe. Millions of confined people found in these new communicators a company that traditional television did not offer them, and creators like El Xokas capitalized on it. Its followers are mostly young men, between 16 and 30 years old, a very important fact to understand the drift towards incendiary political opinions that its content is having lately. It becomes politicized. The transition of gaming to the political commentary It was not a leap, but a gradual change. Xokas incorporated opinions on current affairs, criticism of what he called “single thinking” and positions on cultural debates (feminism, identity, political correctness) that generated more opinions for and against than any video game game. The search for controversy is a strategy that YouTube algorithm rewards to a greater extent than neutral content. Its truthfulness or independence are aspects completely unrelated to success. Consequence of this drift: He doesn’t invent anything. The “political streamer” is a figure who has come a long way outside of Spain. Figures like Tim Pool either Steven Crowder In the United States they created a template that El Xokas is now repeating: they build a base audience on entertainment topics and when they grow, they pivot towards political commentary, without losing followers along the way, and gaining many new ones. Until recently, our ecosystem of creators declared itself apolitical, with successful streamers like Ibai or El Rubius absolutely oblivious to this type of controversy (and although it is often easy to detect the colors, never declared, of creators like AuronPlay, TheGrefg or Illojuan). The model that Kirk invented. And so we come to the debate of ‘Xokas vs. 8 haters’: eight people critical of the streamer’s career debate with him one by one, with Ibai as host and referee. They talked about Xokas’ personality, politics, economics or feminism and four days later, the video has exceeded four and a half million views. It is a format copied from the debates that Charlie Kirk, A conservative debater, he was organizing until his death since 2012: he in the center, progressive students rebutting him one after another, with Kirk responding to each argument before moving on to the next. The format problem. Different studies have pointed out problems with the format, which make rhetorical ability the true value of these discussions: whoever speaks faster and with more confidence seems to win even if their data is incorrect. In the absence of real-time verification mechanisms, the appearance of handling authentic data matters more than actually doing so. The central debater has an advantage due to the confrontation with successive rivals, which eliminates the pressure of arguments: every time a rival finds a line of argument, time runs out. This Spanish version has some added problems: the title itself already generates an editorial reading: naming the critics as “haters” implies that Xokas is the one who is right: if he debates against “haters”, any argument they raise is associated in advance with bad faith, not with reasoning. Politics, on YouTube. A recent Reuters report documents that Spain follows the European trend of shifting information consumption towards video platforms. Those under 35 years of age are the group furthest from traditional formats and, therefore, are more exposed to political opinion mediated by content creators. That is, the public conversation about taxes, feminism or freedom of expression occurs in environments where the editorial rules are different, more wild and less regulated than those of a conventional medium. History of controversies. To get an idea of ​​how the Xokas positions may be affecting younger people, these are some of the controversial opinions they have expressed: Critical in 2021 to ElRubius and TheGrefg for going to Andorra to pay less taxes. Less than a year later, he threatened to leave if they kept uploading them to him. His trick stolen from “a friend” to flirt with drunk girls was the one who generated more criticism outside the streaming environment, and motivated the famous video of the Ministry of Equality in which he was actively identified as one of the main sources of sexist attitudes of mass reach in Spain. In March 2022, it was discovered that her Twitter defender @CathyVipi, which she used to insult critics and competitors, he carried it himself. He stated that the majority of people who cannot change their physique are “undisciplined and lazy“, rejecting the influence of genetic or psychological factors. It was criticized how opinions of this type can affect young followers. After invest in Knoweatsa home-prepared food company, publicly attacked Wetaca (direct competition) in a live broadcast. Wetaca responded on social media by recovering previous statements from Xokas in which it said that “eating healthy is stupid“. Controlling the narrative of all these controversies is essential for El Xokas and his occasional ally Ibai. For this, nothing better than a trap debate. In Xataka | China has solved the mystery of why there are people who go bankrupt watching streams: the “榜一大哥”

The US threatened to take the Rota base to Morocco. Spain has buried it with an unbeatable offer: more territory

by

Since the Madrid Pacts Since 1953, the US military presence in southern Spain has been one of the silent pillars of Western security architecture. Throughout the Cold War, the crises in the Mediterranean and the successive enlargements of NATO, this relationship has survived changes of government, diplomatic tensions and strategic redefinitions without losing its structural weight. Therefore, an idea that had gained strength It worried Spain. The threat that shook the board. It happened in the summer of 2025, when from circles close to the Republican Party slipped the idea of ​​moving the Rota and Morón bases to Morocco in response to the Spanish refusal to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP. As the days passed, the debate stopped being rhetorical and became a strategic question of first order. The proposal suggested that Washington could punish an ally considered insufficiently committed by relocating key assets to the Maghreb, in a context of increasing US support for Rabat and internal tensions in NATO over burden sharing. However, beyond the political noise, the real viability of this maneuver depended on much deeper factors than a simple temporary decision. The first reason: anti-missile shields. Rota is not an interchangeable base, but an essential node of the NATO missile shield together with Romania and Poland, integrated into a system of sensors, radars, satellites and command centers that requires millimeter coordination and reaction times of between five and twenty-five minutes. Not only that. Also houses Aegis destroyers equipped with SM-3 missiles and is part of the technical framework whose nerve center is in Germany, all in allied territory fully integrated into the Atlantic Alliance. The simple idea of ​​moving that capacity to Morocco would imply rebuild from scratch critical infrastructures, redesign the legal and operational framework and, above all, locate sensitive parts of the system in a country that does not belong to NATO, with the legal and political complications that this entails. Morocco is not NATO territory. Rabat has offered in the past ports and military facilitiesand its weight as a strategic partner in the Maghreb and the Sahel has grown exponentially hand in hand with US support for the Sahara and normalization with Israel. However, it is one thing to strengthen cooperation and quite another to replace a structural base already established by facilities outside the allied legal and military umbrella. They remembered in Infodefensa that implementing equivalent capabilities there would require extremely complex bilateral agreements, multimillion-dollar investments and institutional guarantees difficult to match those of a European partner, in addition to altering the logistical balance that allows the United States Navy operate with continuity in the Mediterranean, the eastern Atlantic and Africa. A second irrefutable reason. As they said this morning in Spanishfar from reducing its weight, Rota has begun an expansion valued at more than 400 million of euros, a work that involves new docks, semi-buried magazines and maintenance contracts that can reach 90 million annually with up to six destroyers deployed. In this way, Spain has not only authorized the increase from four to six Aegis vessels, but is adapting the infrastructure to double docking capacity and consolidate the base as a high-tech anti-aircraft and anti-submarine node. In political and strategic terms, the operation amounts to a kind of reinforced transfer of territory and operational sovereignty, although assuming, of course, that the base converts Spanish soil into a potential target in the event of conflict. Broken as a structural piece. In short, the presence of thousands of American soldiers, the agreed ceiling in the bilateral agreement and the local economic impact show a relationship that transcends governments and cycles politicians. So that the hypothesis of a transfer If Morocco were to be moderately credible, clear signs of withdrawal should be observed, such as a reduction in ships or a halt in investments, and the truth is that exactly the opposite is happening. There was already a compelling reason why the United States could not take the base to Morocco: its irreplaceable integration in the NATO architecture. And now Spain has just added a second one that is even more difficult to ignore, by reinforcing and expanding that presence with investments and effective transfer of strategic space that consolidate the Rota base. as a structural piece of Washington’s device in Europe. Image | NavyUS Navy In Xataka | In 1953 the United States decided to put a naval base in Rota. Now the facility looks to its future with uncertainty In Xataka | If the question is whether Spain can deny the US its bases to provide air support to Israel, the answer is not so simple.

The US has cut programs for research and science. Europe and Spain are recruiting their scientists

by

The Trump Administration has cut substantially the funds allocated to finance universities and, with them, the research projects that were being carried out, as as they point out from Nature. So American scientists have had no choice but to look for solutions to the draconian cuts in their country. Europe in general, and Spain in particular, they have become a magnet unexpected for all that talent, with programs that promise stability and million-dollar resources. Talent drain. According to information from the Ministry of Science, the call for the ATRAE program, aimed at incorporating researchers of international prestige with experience abroad in Spanish R&D centers, received 254 applications for the 2025 call. This implies an increase of 32% in applications, marking a historical record, because in 2023 no applications arrived from that country and in 2024 they only accounted for 16% of the total. 33.5% of them came from scientists from the US, which represents more than double that of previous editions. Finally, the scholarship program has selected 37 researchers in a program that allocates 38.9 million euros. Of the selected researchers, 56.7% come from American institutions and universities. Scientists who choose Spain. The Country collected the reasons why some of these researchers had decided to leave the US to continue their work in Spain. Vincenzo Calvanese, a 43-year-old Italian researcher who works at the Josep Carreras Institute in Barcelona after a decade in the United States, says that “many of my colleagues are having a very difficult time because of the political and economic events that affect science.” He encourages other colleagues to follow in his footsteps in Spain or other countries in Europesince the program represents “one of the few opportunities to ensure the future of research and some professional security.” ​Audrey Sawyer, a 43-year-old American hydrogeologist who has joined the research team at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, expresses a similar concern: “I have never seen a situation like this in the US. I feel very bad for the researchers and students, they are very talented and are facing serious challenges.” Although she applied before the most recent cuts, she clearly sees how federal funding affects areas like biomedicine and climate change. Europe: a troubled river gains fishermen. According to a survey made by Nature Among the US scientific community, 75% of researchers have seriously contemplated emigrating due to the cuts and layoffs promoted by Trump. In this scenario of uncertainty, Europe fights back taking out the nets to try to attract a good part of that talent dissatisfied with cuts in US research. The EU has doubled the funding of the European Research Council (ERC) with 500 million euros to provide it with more resources for these new researchers under the umbrella of the program Europe horizon. Spain distributes the incorporation of these new researchers in a balanced way: Catalonia receives 35.1% of the funding provided by these new scholarships, Madrid receives 29.7%, and entities such as the CSIC host 29.7% of the researchers. In this way, local research is reinforced with international talent, new students are trained and more funds are attracted from international competitions. The exodus is not only about science. The desire to leave the US does not only occur in the scientific field, some EU countries have doubled the number of residency applications and citizenship of US citizens. It is the case of Irelandwhich went from receiving 31,825 in all of 2024, to 3,692 applications during the month of February 2025 alone. Europe’s response to those requests has been different, tightening requirements to obtain residency or, as in the case of Spain, eliminating the “Golden Visa“which granted a residence permit in exchange of an economic investment. In Xataka | Of course digital nomads love Oviedo. It’s not because of the way of life: it’s because they charge 90,000 euros Image | Wikipedia, Unsplash (National Cancer Institute)

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.