european union
June 13th, 2013
A total of 29,208 agents from the Spanish National Police Force and the Guardia Civil will participate in this year's “Operation Summer” to be launched by the Interior Ministry on 1st July, to ensure the safety of the millions of tourists expected to visit Spain in the coming months. The operation, ...
Continue reading Interior Ministry to Launch Summer Tourism Safety Campaign
May 27th, 2013
Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, revealed last week that, following the introduction of the special reporting procedure for identifying foreign accounts, which is part of the new Fraud Act and which provides penalties of up to 150% of the value of any undeclared asset, 131,411 Spanish taxpayers have declared foreign ...
Continue reading Spanish Taxpayers Declare Foreign Assets of 87,700 Million Euros
May 22nd, 2013
Production in the construction sector in Spain increased by 16.6% in March, compared with the same month in 2012, and represented the highest growth rate in the whole of the European Union, according to data released on Friday by the European Commission statistical agency, Eurostat. After two months of declines, the ...
Continue reading Construction in Spain Recorded Highest Growth in EU
April 16th, 2013
According to data released on Thursday by the EU statistical office, Eurostat, housing prices in Spain fell 12.8% in the fourth quarter of 2012 compared to the same period of 2011 - a negative percentage placing the country at the head of the European Union (EU), where house prices fell ...
Continue reading Spain Leads Drop in Housing Prices in the EU
April 8th, 2013
According to figures released last week by the European Union statistical office, Eurostat, retail sales in the eurozone fell by 0.3% in February compared to January, when they experienced an increase of 0.9% (corrected data, down from an initial estimate of a 1.2% rise). Compared with the same month last year, ...
Continue reading Eurozone Retail Sales Down 0.3% in February
March 22nd, 2013
The Spanish Minister of Economy and Competitiveness, Luis de Guindos, said last Friday that the Government will introduce changes in the Spanish legislation which regulates evictions, in order to comply fully with the recent judgement of the European Union Court of Justice. On his arrival at the eurozone heads of Economy ...
Continue reading De Guindos Vows to Fulfill EU Ruling on Anti-eviction Law
March 21st, 2013
The Spanish Official State Gazette (BOE) published a resolution last Friday creating a new National Office for International Taxation (ONFI), which is expected to enter into force on 1st April. As announced in November by the State Secretary for the Treasury, Miguel Ferre, this new specialised unit will assume responsibility ...
Continue reading Spain Launches New Office for International Taxation
February 8th, 2013
The four major banks that have been, or are, in the hands of the State - CAM Bank, NCG Banco, Bankia, and CatalunyaCaixa - last year sold nearly 40,000 real estate assets amounting to more than 5,000 million euros, with discounts reaching 60%. The persistence of the crisis, and the new ...
Continue reading Nationalised Banks Offload Over 40,000 Homes in 2012
February 6th, 2013
According to a recent study published by the consulting firm, KPMG, Spain was the country in the world which registered the largest increase in VAT in 2012, after a rise of three points in the standard rate (to 21%) came into force on 1st September last year. The report notes that, ...
Continue reading Spain: Biggest VAT Increase in the World is Still Below Average
February 5th, 2013
In the third quarter of 2012, the price of housing in Spain registered a drop of 15.2% year-on-year, which is the biggest drop recorded among all the European Union countries, which experienced an average decrease of 1.9% compared to the same period in 2011. These results are taken from data published ...
Continue reading Spain: Biggest Annual House Price Drop in Europe
December 26th, 2012
In a video posted on the official website of the European Council, the Council President, Herman Van Rompuy, said that "2012 marked the turning point" to exit the financial and economic crisis affecting the eurozone. Van Rompuy stated: "We are at the end of the year and it is time ...
Continue reading 2012 Marks “Turning Point” in Crisis, Says Van Rompuy
December 19th, 2012
Economy and Finance Ministers of the European Union on Thursday reached agreement on the legal framework which will enable Europe to create a single banking supervisor to begin operating in 2014. Under the agreed terms, Germany has had its wish in that the European Central Bank (ECB) will only control ...
Continue reading EU Reaches Agreement on Single Banking Supervisor
November 27th, 2012
The European Investment Bank (EIB) has issued a loan for 500 million euros to the Official Credit Institute of Spain (ICO) aimed at financing investment projects undertaken by SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), mostly in the industrial and service sectors. This financing will be intended for use on investments and as ...
Continue reading Spanish SMEs Receive 1 Billion Euros Financing
November 19th, 2012
According to data released on Thursday by the European Union Statistical Office, Eurostat, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the eurozone fell 0.1% in the third quarter of the year compared to the previous three months, when the fall was 0.2%. Spain shrank by 0.3% in the third quarter due ...
Continue reading Eurozone GDP Shrinks 0.1% in Q3 and into Recession
October 5th, 2012
Unemployment in the eurozone and in the whole of the European Union (EU) remained stable in August and continues at record highs, the EU statistics office Eurostat announced this week. The EU agency indicated that unemployment in the eurozone was 11.4% in August, while in the EU-27 it stood at 10.5%, ...
Continue reading Eurozone Unemployment Remained Stable in August
