Spain

Japan’s madness with garbage reaches the point that, in some areas, they separate it into 45 different categories. And, despite everything, it recycles half as much as Spain

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At the end of the 90s, the thousand or so residents of Kamikatsu (a small town in the Japanese prefecture of Tokushima) became a question that would change them forever: “Why do we generate so much waste?” The response led them to be the first Japanese municipality to declare themselves ‘zero waste’, to sell garbage cans and to ask their neighbors to separate their waste into 45 different categories. Waste that they carry themselves to the local clean point. One sees this and can only ask one question: have these Japanese gone crazy? And the answer is neither “yes” nor “no”: it is both at the same time. Why are we talking about this? As often happens lately, everything starts with a video. A tiktoker who resides in Japan (@nuriape_) has shown how what apparently is “jack, knight and king” works: the garbage system. And the truth is that it is curious: each building has its own waste area. The one in the video is quite broad and, as he explains, super strict. In addition, much of the processing is done by neighbors: things like cleaning the bottles and depositing them in places other than the caps or leaving the cardboard perfectly folded are part of the process. The collection, it seems, is daily. Now that the new waste rates have returned to waste management to the public debate in our country, the question is… is the Japanese system, in addition to being striking, effective? How does the Japanese waste system work? Since ’97, Japanese laws require separating glass, PET and cardboard. However, over time, the situation has become more and more complex. And, today, the collection categories range from nine in the “less advanced” municipalities to 45 in many areas of the country. And no, it is not optional: if you do not separate the garbage correctly, it will not be collected and that’s it. A garbage collection machine. As a result of these almost three decades of social pedagogy, the country of the rising sun is a well-oiled machine in terms of citizen separation and collection logistics. The problem is, well, it doesn’t help much either. Because collecting is not recycling. And Japan is the best example: its actual recycling rate is surprisingly low. While Spain (with an infinitely less obsessive system) recycles around 39%, Japan is around 20%. It is not that in our country we are here to “shoot rockets”: According to EU plans, we should be around 55% since last year. However, there is something we are doing better than Japan just as there are things we are doing worse. No overflowing containers. That’s perhaps what works best in Japan. Faced with the unequal Spanish management (because they depend on municipalities and councils), the Japanese system prioritizes segmented daily collection, precise calendars and logistical inflexibility. In addition, they also incorporate things that work in the rest of Europe and Spanish legislation contemplates, but almost no one implements: payment per garbage bag. Something that encourages waste reduction and inherently improves the system’s capacity. On the other hand, Spain does interesting things (whether they work better or worse): the main thing perhaps is that the system extends responsibility to producers. What we have in common. While Japan has a hyperdependence on incineration (75% of its garbage ends up burned), Spain has a hyperdependence on landfills (50% ends up buried), we both share a problem with single-use plastics. It is true that Japan is much more worrying (it is the world’s second largest producer of plastic packaging waste per capita), but we both have to think about the matter. Image | Jonas Gerlach In Xataka | We have been thinking for decades that plastic recycling was worth something. Maybe we were wrong

Texas has the same problem of sinkholes and potholes as Spain but believes it has the solution: plastic roads

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It is barely one kilometer but the promise is enormous: converting the roads into a huge plastic recycling plant. Testing began at the University of Texas at Arlington (United States) promulgated by Sahadat Hossaincivil engineer and director of the Solid Waste Institute for Sustainability at the University of Texas, but they have already taken the leap to the road. Hossain tells the story in The Conversationwhere he explains that the project was born from his obsession with recycling plastic. The engineer points out that he grew up in a low-income neighborhood of Bangladesh and that there he observed that people who lived closer to the landfills suffered more health problems than those who lived a little further away. His childhood experience has focused much of his research, focusing on the impact of materials on the environment and possible solutions for recycling them. Among the most complicated to recycle and, without a doubt, the most used: plastic. Now, under their research, in the United States they have launched a project to use plastics used in the construction of roads. And the results are being successful. Harder and more resistant In Texas they have a problem: it’s hot. Very hot, in fact. When building a road, taking the climate into account is essential. ANDIn warmer places, harder bitumens are needed. because they tolerate heat better. The problem is that asphalt also becomes more fragile and breaks more easily. The problems are even more pronounced if a wave of bad weather with a lot of water hits a fragile pavement, as has happened in Spain. A solution could go through make the asphalt a little more elastic but this has an intrinsic problem. And if the asphalt is more elastic, it also resists heat less well and in the harshest months it can soften and melt, as has happened to the United Kingdom in recent years. But this is, always, if we use traditional methods. What Sahadat Hossain’s team is testing is injecting plastics into the bitumen that binds the mixture of stones and sand that makes up the asphalt. At the moment, they are trying to inject plastics that make up between 8 and 10% of the bitumen mixture that binds the rest of the materials. It may not seem like a lot but, according to Hossain, at a test site near Dallas they used 4.5 tons of plastics that came from single-use plastic bags or bottles that were discarded to build a mile. It is a not insignificant amount if we think that we are talking about building about 1,600 meters of road while giving a new use to a material that produces about 400 million tons a year and of which barely 10% is recycled. To be useful, the process requires shred plastic until you get a very fine material that can melt with the bitumen and thus not leave elements in the air. And the result is being good. The first tests were done in university parking lot but they have already been scaling the project to roads with intense road traffic. According to their experience, the asphalt continues to resist heat (with good performance on days that exceeded 100º Fahrenheit, almost 38ºC) and is more flexible than with the traditional system, which reduces the risk of cracks and fractures. Point at The Conversationthat one of these tests has also been carried out in Bangladesh, where a heat wave caused more cracks and fractures in traditional roads while this road with plastics suffered much less wear. It is, therefore, good news when it comes to extend the useful life of the pavement and save money on maintenance. The good news is that the project is monitoring all the results with high traffic volume roads (also the adverse ones such as the possible emission of microplastics when vehicles pass by). And this test is by no means the first. In Rotterdam there was already talk of building these roads with recycled plastics a decade ago. However, its fatigue is much lower. The advantage here is that its performance can be studied under constant and high-tonnage traffic. Photo | The University of Texas at Arlington In Xataka | Until 2020, Spain had the most praised roads in Europe. Now it has something else: a hole of 13,000 million euros

Amazon increases its investment in Spain to 33.7 billion euros. All, of course, for data centers

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amazon has announced that will expand your investment in data centers in Spain, and this amount will now reach 33.7 billion euros in total. Today’s announcement adds 18 billion euros to the 15.7 billion euros of investment announced by 2024. Amazon is going more in Spain. The company has taken advantage of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona for an announcement that significantly reinforces its strategy in our country. The announcement highlights that there are plans to build facilities for manufacturing, storage and something interesting: server recycling in Spain. The promise of employment. Amazon’s forecast is that this Amazon Web Services (AWS) region, which reinforces its location in Aragónwill contribute 31.7 billion euros to Spain’s total GDP until 2035. They estimate that it will contribute “the equivalent of 29,900 full time jobs on average annually in local companies.” Of that figure, there will be 6,700 full-time jobs derived from Amazon’s direct investment in various areas such as data center operationsemployees of AWS providers, or workers who build the facilities. Supply chain. This investment includes an important part of the business consisting of facilities dedicated to the supply chain. These facilities, according to Amazon, will theoretically generate 1,800 jobs in Aragon. Thus, there will be a factory dedicated to the assembly and final testing of the servers, a logistics warehouse and a facility for the manufacturing and repair of AI servers. Let’s talk about energy… Amazon has not given too many details about what the energy and water needs that these data centers will have. However, it does indicate that they have committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2040. To do this they are investing in 100 solar and wind projects across Spain, including seven new solar farms. According to their data, AWS data centers in Aragon have offset their electricity consumption with 100% renewable energy since opening in 2022. It remains to be seen if that is enough to prevent the Spanish electrical infrastructure, already saturated, from bursting. …and water. There is also talk about how AWS is going to face the water consumption of these centers: “AWS is also committed to returning more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations by 2030. By 2024, AWS had reached 53% of that goal. In Aragon, AWS supports five water projects with an investment of 17.2 million euros.” A pinch of capex. That investment is certainly part of the planned capex that Amazon has estimated for 2026. The total figure is 200,000 million dollarsa notable increase from the 131.8 billion dollars of capex in 2025. Thus, those 18 billion euros ($21.11 billion) at the current exchange rate represent just over 10% of that capex. AWS is doing (very well). Amazon may not be standing out for having its own AI model, but it certainly has value in its cloud infrastructure. In it fourth quarter of 2025 AWS’s revenue was $35.6 billion, achieving the most notable year-over-year growth (24%) in the last three years. It is evident that investment in infrastructure at a global level is working right now, and Spain has benefited from that momentum. In Xataka | Amazon is negotiating to invest 50 billion in OpenAI. The money would go in through the door and out through the window.

Iran has just attacked a base in Europe. The paradox of Spain is that it condemns the war, but the US does not need to ask to use its bases

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In 1953, in the middle of the Cold War and at a time of international isolation, Spain signed with the United States the so-called Madrid Pactsan agreement that opened the door to the installation of North American military bases on Spanish soil in exchange for economic and military aid. That decision, taken in a completely different geopolitical context, ended up becoming one of the longer lasting pillars of the bilateral relationship and a structural element of Western defensive architecture in southern Europe. Rota, Morón and a return. The operation American and Israeli against Iran has returned to place the Rota and Morón bases in the center of the strategic board. Destroyers permanently deployed in Cádiz They sailed to the Mediterranean Eastern, strategic transport planes and tankers took off towards the area and the Aegis system embarked on ships of the Arleigh Burke class It once again acted as an anti-missile shield. Rota is not just another base: it is part of the naval component of the NATO missile shield and, in practice, it has served on several occasions as a direct reinforcement of the defense of Israel in the face of Iranian salvos. Far from being reduced, the American presence has expanded in recent years, with five destroyers already stationed and a sixth on the wayconsolidating the Cádiz base as a structural piece of Washington’s military projection in the Middle East. Europe closes ranks with Washington. France, the United Kingdom and Germany have declared your disposition to take proportionate defensive actions against Iran and have coordinated your posture with the United States. London has explicitly authorized the use of British bases to neutralize missiles at source, while Paris and Berlin have supported the defense of European interests in the region. This position of the so-called E3 represents a political and operational support to the US strategy and confirms that, on a military level, Western Europe has not distanced itself from the offensive. Beyond diplomatic nuances, the message is clear: the main European powers are willing to provide infrastructure and resources if escalation demands it. First attack on Europe. Hours after Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced his decision to authorize the United States to use bases in the United Kingdom to launch attacks on Iranian missile depots, a drone has impacted against the RAF military installations at Akrotiri, on the island of Cyprus. In this way, a more than relevant event occurs on the continent: Iran has attacked a European base. The Spanish paradox. For its part, Spain has condemned publicly the intervention and has appealed for de-escalation and respect for international law. However, the paradox is evident: while the Government criticizes the operation, US ships and media stationed in Rota have participated in the military device. The key is in the current legal framework. The US forces are not in Spain by specific authorization of the Executive in power, but by virtue of that bilateral agreement that regulates their presence and use of facilities. Because the United States does not need ask permission on a case-by-case basis for each ordinary operational movement within the agreed framework. In essence, Spain may express political rejection, but infrastructure is already part of the US strategic architecture in Europe and the Mediterranean, and its activation does not depend on an improvised consultation in the middle of a crisis. What Spain can do legally. The bases of Rota and Morón are governed by the Convention of Defense Cooperation between Spain and the United States, which is periodically renewed and establishes the conditions of use. Spain could in theorydenounce the agreement, not renew it or demand substantial modifications, which would open a complex diplomatic process that would require formal deadlines and prior notifications. It could also try to limit certain activities if it considers that they exceed what was agreed or violate international law. However, the real chances of that scenario materializing are rather few. The bases are part of NATO’s defensive framework, generate employment and investment, and are integrated into broader strategic commitments. Abruptly breaking or restricting the agreement would imply a political, military and diplomatic cost of great magnitude, both in the bilateral relationship with Washington and within the Atlantic Alliance. Between sovereignty and interdependence. If you also want, the current situation reveals the structural tension that exists between formal sovereignty and strategic commitments. Spain retains ultimate legal power over its territory, but has voluntarily linked part of its military infrastructure to a collective defense system. In this way, when a crisis breaks out like Iranthat interdependence becomes visible: the decisions made in Washington, London or Paris are immediately reflected in Spanish ports and runways. The political condemnation can modulate the discourse, but strategic reality shows that Rota and Morón are nodes integrated in a network that transcends the current debate and that places Spain, want it or notwithin the operational perimeter of the US strategy in the Middle East. Image | US Naval Forces Central Command/US Fifth Fleet, Navy In Xataka | The US threatened to take the Rota base to Morocco. Spain has buried it with an unbeatable offer: more territory In Xataka | A disturbing idea for the US is beginning to gain strength: if the war with Iran lasts more than five days it will not win it

The most profitable action of the AI ​​revolution in Spain is not a software company. It is a construction company

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We know Florentino Pérez ample by hire galactics and for his business successes, but a priori we would not easily relate him to the rise of AI. And by not doing so we would make a serious mistake, because the manager managed to see before anyone else that this was a huge opportunity… and he is taking advantage of it almost without us realizing it. what has happened. ACS is a construction company that doesn’t seem particularly fascinating. You lay bricks, asphalt and cement, but in 2025 the data tells a fascinating story. The company obtained a net profit of 950 million euros, 15% more than the previous year, and the engine of that growth was its American subsidiary, Turnerwhose contribution to the group’s results grew by 66.6% to 549 million euros. Turner doesn’t build flats or highways. Build data centers. And therein lies the crux of the matter. AI needs big construction companies. The transformation has not happened all at once. ACS has been betting on this niche for years with a simple but powerful thesis: AI requires enormous amounts of hardware, and that hardware needs equally huge buildings with cooling, energy and security. And ACS is dedicated to precisely that: to build large buildings. In Xataka Amazon is building an empire in Aragon: it has just paid 1.5 million to expand the electrical network to its fifth data center Florentino triumphs in the US. Turner arrived earlier and stronger. In 2025, ACS won several large-scale data center contracts, including the construction of a 902-megawatt center in Wisconsin as part of the Stargate program, and a stake in the $10 billion, one-megawatt Meta campus in Indiana. Those are conventional projects. They are cities whose inhabitants are servants for this new era of AI. Go for it all. As they point out in five daysdata centers generated more than 9 billion euros in sales during 2025, and ACS has already delivered more than 9 GW of capacity all over the world. That figure is extraordinary, especially considering that in all of Spain the installed capacity barely reaches 7 GW. The Spanish company that talks the least about AI has been silently one of its great beneficiaries for years. Very much in the style of Florentino Pérez, who usually maintains a relatively low profile and succeeds without making too much noise. Stocks on the rise. The market took a while to see it, but it has reacted forcefully. ACS shares have soared 115% in the last twelve months. Today they are close to 110 euros and mark historical highs while the construction sector advances (“only”) 20%. Group sales they reached 49,848 million euros, with the US and Canada contributing 63% of the total. ACS is in practice more of a North American technological infrastructure company than a Spanish construction company. It is listed on the Ibex and is chaired by one of the great football personalities, yes, but its current driving force is not here, but in the US and in the AI ​​fever. Build and Own. ACS is not limited to executing other people’s contracts: it also wants to be the owner of what it builds. In January 2026, the company completed an alliance with Global Infrastructure Partners, BlackRock subsidiaryto create a 50/50 joint venture to develop a global data center platform with an initial capacity of 1.7 GW. Already before had bought Dornanan Irish engineering company specialized in this type of infrastructure, for 436 million euros. ACS doesn’t just want to build AI data centers: it wants to own a piece of that infrastructure. The dollar as a great risk. One of the big problems with this project is the US currency. With more than 60% of its income in North America, each fall of the dollar against the euro is a setback for the Spanish multinational. The devaluation of the dollar is already greater than 10% after the last twelve months, and that has prevented Turner’s growth from being even greater. According to Renta 4 analysts, the “currency effect” subtracted more than five percentage points from the growth of net profit. And investors warn. Analysts themselves consider that the AI ​​market has already discounted a good part of future growth. At Bloomberg, the consensus is to maintain the stock with an average target price of 88 euros, which would imply a fall of 20% compared to current levels. This is what usually happens with good economic stories: when everyone knows them, they are no longer an opportunity. But at ACS they are optimistic. Although experts are cautious, at ACS they expect that spending on infrastructure quadruples from now to 2034. In fact, they expect that the benefits of 2026 will go even further than those of 2025 and exceed 1,000 million euros. If it achieves this, Florentino’s company will have completed one of the quietest and most profitable industrial transformations in the recent history of our country. {“videoId”:”x86aas4″,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”60% of the INTERNET passes through HERE: This is the LARGEST Data Processing Center in SPAIN”, “tag”:””, “duration”:”266″} Turner is ahead. According to Data Center MagazineTurner accumulated a backlog – a portfolio of confirmed orders – of $39 billion as of August 2025. It is the dominant construction company in this segment globally, although of course it has direct competitors such as DPR Construction, Holder, Skanska or AECOM. However, none have achieved the same concentration of contracts with the hyperscalers (Meta, Amazon and Microsoft). Turner has been building its reputation as a builder of this type of facility for more than a decade, and it is very difficult to replicate that advantage quickly. The irony of ACS and Spain. There is a geographical paradox in this success story: Spain and Europe have years debating on digital sovereignty, technological dependence and the need to build own infrastructure for not to be left out of the AI ​​revolution. While this debate is taking place, the Spanish company that is most building this infrastructure is doing so almost exclusively outside of Spain. As … Read more

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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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