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03.13 - Spain Today News 5 September 2026 · Spain Today - Last Spanish News

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  Imagine you spend like a solid century dedicating all your
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  resources, your best engineering talent, your wealth to becoming
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  the absolute undisputed heavyweight champion of building
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  flip phones. You are the best in the world.
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  And then just on a random Tuesday, the iPhone drops.
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  Yeah, everything changes. Exactly.
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  Suddenly nobody cares about the perfect hinge on a flip phone.
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  And that is exactly the kind of structural, terrifying pivot
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  that is happening to the European economy right now.
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  It really is. So welcome everyone to Spain
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  Today News. It is fantastic to have you here
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  with us. And before we get into it, I
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  want to explicitly invite you to hit that follow button on our
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  channel, just so you don't miss any chapter of what we're
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  building here. We have a lot to cover today.
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  We really do. Today we are making sense of a
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  massive wave of transitions sweeping across Europe, with a
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  major spotlight on Spain. We're looking at a historic
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  crisis in the European auto industry, Spain's sudden
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  explosion into the deep tech space, A fiercely debated
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  political over regional money, and finally a massive cultural
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  milestone for Latin music. Which I know sounds like we are
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  all over the map. I mean jumping from electric
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  vehicles to quantum computing and then a pop music.
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  It's a bit of a spread. It is, but there is actually a
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  very clear through line connecting all these events.
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  We are watching a real time high stakes battle for sovereignty.
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  Sovereignty. Exactly.
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  Industrial sovereignty, digital sovereignty, political and
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  cultural sovereignty. It is all about who controls the
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  future, who owns the infrastructure and, well, who
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  gets to make the rules. Which brings us right back to
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  that flip phone analogy. Let's start with the industrial
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  piece, because we grow up thinking of Europe as this
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  unshakable manufacturing powerhouse, right?
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  Right. But right now, one of its
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  biggest, most reliable engines is just entirely sputtering out.
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  Yeah. And sputtering is almost an
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  understatement at this point. I mean, we're looking at a
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  structural earthquake in the European auto industry.
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  I saw the recent headline about Volkswagen which honestly just
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  stopped me in my tracks. They announced this drastic plan
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  to potentially cut what, up to 50,000 jobs?
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  Yeah, 50,000 jobs. And reduce production by a
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  million vehicles a year. Is this just one legacy company
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  having a bad quarter or is this like systemic?
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  Oh, it's entirely systemic. Yeah.
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  Just look at the broader landscape.
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  I mean, earlier this year, Stalantis, that's the massive
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  conglomerate that owns Peugeot, Fiat, Opal, Jeep, they lost 1/4
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  of their stock value in a single day.
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  Wow. 1/4. Yes.
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  And Renault has suffered massive losses in 2025, a lot of it tied
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  to the fallout from exiting Nissan.
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  You really have to understand the scale here.
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  The auto sector isn't just another business in Europe.
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  It represents 7% of the entire European Union's GDP. 7%, that's
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  huge, right? And more importantly, it employs
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  13 million people directly and indirectly.
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  Oh wow, you're talking about entire towns built around
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  assembly plants, Steel workers, chemical engineers, you know,
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  logistics fleets. So let's bring this down to eye
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  level for a second for the listener.
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  If that engine stalls out, what happens to the person listening
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  to this right now? If 13 million jobs are suddenly
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  vulnerable, who pays into the tax base?
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  Who pays for the European healthcare system or the public
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  infrastructure or pensions? And that is exactly the
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  existential threat. The entire European welfare
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  state relies on the high value tax base that manufacturing
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  provides. If that vanishes, the the social
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  stability of the continent is at risk.
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  But how did we even get here? Because Europe invented modern
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  automotive engineering. They mastered the combustion
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  engine. It's not like Europeans suddenly
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  forgot how to build cars overnight.
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  No, they didn't forget how to build cars, but the definition
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  of what a car is completely changed.
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  Going back to your flip phone analogy, Europe's been 100 years
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  perfecting the engine block. But in an electric vehicle, the
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  engine block is irrelevant. The value is entirely in the
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  battery chemistry, the software and the semiconductors.
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  But are. People just like not buying
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  cars. That's the wild part.
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  Consumer demand isn't the problem at all.
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  European car sales actually grew by 5.7% in the first half of
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  2026. Wait.
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  Really. Yeah, people are still buying
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  cars, but local production dropped by nearly 10%.
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  So they're buying cars, but they aren't buying cars made in
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  Europe. Why the massive disconnect?
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  It basically comes down to a fundamental clash in financial
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  philosophy. European auto manufacturers are
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  driven by private shareholders and they demand short term
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  profits. Right, they want returns now.
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  Exactly. They want to see dividends this
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  quarter, this year. So when the EV transition
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  started, European companies were super hesitant to burn billions
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  of EUR completely retooling their factories because it would
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  just tank their short term stock prices.
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  They just didn't want to take the immediate hit.
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  Right. But China operates on an
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  entirely different model. They rely on state backed long
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  term strategy. They use what economists call
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  patient capital. Patient capital, meaning they
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  don't care about the next quarter.
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  Exactly. They are willing to stomach a
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  decade of financial losses if it means they dominate the market
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  in year 11. They spent the last 15 years
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  heavily subsidizing their battery supply chains and raw
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  material processing. So when the EV boom finally hit,
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  China had the entire ecosystem ready to go and Europe just sort
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  of assumed their century of combustion branding would
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  somehow magically allow them to catch up.
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  And now we're seeing the panic response, which is offshoring.
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  To cut costs, they're moving production to places like
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  Morocco, Mexico, Turkey, China, even Volkswagen is prioritizing
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  production in the US and China, leaving the future of European
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  born brands like Seat totally hanging in the balance.
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  Which brings us to the core issue of industrial sovereignty.
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  You cannot maintain your economic independence if you
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  just become a continent that imports and assembles foreign
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  parts, right? There is a very strong consensus
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  building right now among industrial economists.
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  If these giant auto companies are going to demand European
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  taxpayer subsidies to survive this transition, then the
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  manufacturing must be strictly made in Europe.
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  Yeah, you can't rebuild your industrial sovereignty by
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  building your factories in another hemisphere.
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  OK, so Europe is currently paying the price for missing the
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  boat on the EV strategy, but here is where this gets
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  incredibly interesting, especially for Spain.
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  Spain looked at that failure, looked at the lack of patient
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  capital, and decided they're absolutely not going to let
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  history repeat itself with the next major technological
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  revolution, which is deep tech. And the pivot has been really
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  aggressive. The digital economy in Spain now
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  accounts for 27% of its total GDP. 27%, yeah.
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  We're talking about nearly €146.66 billion in 2025 alone,
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  and they built the plumbing for this too.
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  Spain currently sits at 99.2 percent 5G coverage and ranks
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  second in all of Europe for digital infrastructure.
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  That's amazing. Let's talk about what they are
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  actually doing with that infrastructure because this
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  isn't just, you know, making smartphone apps.
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  Let's look at space. There is a Spanish company
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  called Open Cosmos that is literally manufacturing one
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  satellite every single day. Yes, and what's fascinating is
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  how those satellites operate. Right, because normally a
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  satellite just acts like a giant dumb mirror.
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  It takes massive amounts of raw unfiltered data and beams it all
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  down to earth, which just takes forever and wastes a ton of
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  energy processing garbage data. Right, it's highly inefficient.
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  But Open Cosmos is putting artificial intelligence directly
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  on board the satellite. Which is an absolute game
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  changer for data latency. Exactly.
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  The AI filters the data while it is still in space, so if you're
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  trying to predict a hurricane or detect a wildfire, the satellite
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  only sends down the exact specific images needed to spot
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  the fire before it spreads. Yeah.
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  And the founder, Rafael Jordan, he actually described their
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  approach by saying they want to be the Killian Jornette of the
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  space sector. I love that comparison.
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  Yeah, for anyone not deep into extreme sports, Killian Jornette
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  is a legendary record-breaking ultra marathon runner.
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  So the metaphor implies extreme endurance, but with an
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  incredibly agile, lightweight footprint.
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  They aren't building clunky billion dollar behemoths,
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  they're running an agile ultra marathon in orbit.
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  And they are applying that same ambition to quantum computing
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  too. Like Coulomanjaro Tech has
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  already built 8 quantum computers, and they weren't just
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  sitting in a university lab somewhere.
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  They're opening a massive multimodal data center to fully
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  industrialized quantum technology by 2030.
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  Let's actually define what that means, because multimodal data
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  center sounds like pure tech jargon.
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  Yes, please break that down for me.
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  So traditional computers, even the big supercomputers, process
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  things sequentially. They're great for most things,
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  but terrible at simulating nature, like developing new life
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  saving drugs or optimizing a national power grid.
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  Quantum computers can solve those specific problems in
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  seconds, things that would take a normal computer literally the
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  lifespan of the universe. But quantum computers are really
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  bad at basic math. So a multimodal center
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  physically integrates classic supercomputers and quantum
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  computers under one roof. They just hand tasks back and
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  forth to each other seamlessly. So they're building the ultimate
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  hybrid brain. Exactly, and they're doing it on
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  European soil, which ties right into the AI push as well.
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  Take Julio Sola from GPU Solutions.
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  He is fiercely advocating for AI sovereignty through private,
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  localized models. This is huge for the listener
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  because every time you ask a generic AI to draft an e-mail or
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  a hospital inputs patients symptoms, that data is usually
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  flying off to a server in California somewhere.
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  Right, it leaves the country. Yeah, Sola's vision is that a
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  bank or a hospital in Spain keeps 100% control over their
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  own data in their own private AI model.
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  And he's solving the hardware problem too.
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  He uses liquid cooling for his data centers.
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  Because AI runs incredibly hot. Incredibly hot.
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  If you ask an AI a question, the silicon chips spike in
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  temperature almost instantly. Traditional data centers use
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  massive room sized air conditioners to blast cold air,
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  which is terribly inefficient. Liquid cooling runs coolant
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  directly over the chips. Seoul has a great analogy for
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  why we need this efficiency, he says.
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  Using a massive generic global AI model to do a simple task is
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  like starting a nuclear plant to turn on a light bulb.
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  Wow, it it's an unbelievable waste of energy and we're even
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  seeing this highly tailored approach in education now.
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  A Spanish platform called Let Me Know, which used to be OD Low is
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  proving that you can't just throw a generic intro to AI
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  course at a company's entire staff and expect them to
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  upskill. No, doesn't work.
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  It has to be personalized to their specific job function.
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  But look, I have to stop and play devil's advocate here for a
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  second. Sure, go for it.
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  I'm looking at all these amazing projects, Satellites, quantum
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  hybrids, liquid cooled AI, but is it actually realistic for
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  Spain or even Europe to go toe to toe with absolute tech
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  goliaths like the US and China? I mean their budgets are
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  astronomical. Are we just throwing pebbles at
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  Giants? It's definitely the right
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  question to ask, but Rafael Sharda from Open Cosmos
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  addressed this directly in the sources.
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  His response was it's not just realistic, it is essential for
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  survival. Essential for survival.
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  Yes. And if we link this back to the
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  auto crisis, what was the fatal flaw there?
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  The lack of patient capital, you know, the obsession with the
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  short term, right? China had patient capital for
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  cars. Spain is now actively
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  cultivating patient capital for deep tech.
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  They've launched an unprecedented €8 billion deep
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  tech strategy to fund exactly this kind of long term risk.
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  OK, So they're putting real money behind it.
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  They know that if they don't build this digital
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  infrastructure themselves, they will spend the next century
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  renting their future from Silicon Valley or Shenzhen.
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  So Spain is pouring billions into this patient capital to
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  secure their digital sovereignty.
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  But here's the reality check That money has to come from
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  somewhere. And deciding whose pockets that
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  money comes from is currently tearing Spanish politics apart.
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  Oh, absolutely. Now a quick heads up for you
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  listening this next topic. The regional funding is an
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  absolute political minefield in Spain right now.
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  The sources we're looking at contain highly charged rhetoric
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  from both the left and the right.
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  Just to be totally clear, we aren't taking sides today.
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  We are just going to lay out the facts, the math and the
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  arguments as they appear in the source material, just so you can
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  understand the mechanics of a debate that is really dominating
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  the country. It is deeply polarizing, but you
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  really can't understand Spain's economic future without
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  understanding how the check gets split.
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  Exactly. So here's the proposal on the
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  table. The Ministry of Finance recently
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  approved a new regional finance and reform proposal in the
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  Fiscal and Financial Policy Council, and on paper it sounds
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  like a massive windfall. It promises nearly €20.975
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  billion more for the region makes.
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  Is a huge number. Huge The goal is to reduce the
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  funding gap between territories from €1500 per inhabitant down
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  to just €700. It even creates a special fund
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  for areas dealing with the strain of mass tourism or
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  depopulation. Sounds incredibly generous,
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  right? Until, you know, you look at who
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  actually voted for it. Right.
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  The catch is that only Catalonia and the Canary Islands voted in
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  favor. Almost every other region either
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  aggressively opposed it or boycotted it entirely.
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  To understand why, imagine this scenario.
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  You go out for a massive group dinner with your extended
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  family. When the bill comes, the host
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  suddenly ships in an extra €20 billion to cover the bill, yet
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  almost every single guest gets up and leaves the table in
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  protest over who gets to take on the leftovers.
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  That captures the structural anger perfectly, thank you.
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  Let's look at the government and the PSOE, the Socialist Party
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  perspective. Minister Arcadia Espana defends
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  this as an unprecedented transfer of wealth from the
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  central government directly to the regions.
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  Their core argument is that no region actually loses money in
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  this deal. Right, everyone gets something.
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  Exactly. They claim the conservative
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  Popular Party, the PP, is basically staging A theatrical
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  boycott orchestrated by their national leadership.
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  In fact, the PSOE branch of Madrid accused Mcgrid's
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  president Isabel Diaz Ayuso of institutional hooliganism for
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  refusing to accept over €2.5 billion meant for local health
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  and education. But then you flip to the PP and
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  the opposition's perspective and the narrative is entirely
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  different. President Ayuso actually
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  boycotted the meeting entirely to try and break the quorum, so
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  the vote couldn't legally proceed.
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  Yeah, she didn't even show up right.
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  And Carolina Espana from the Peaky government in Andalusia.
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  She called the reform political corruption.
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  Their argument is that this entire €21 billion package is
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  just a bargaining chip designed specifically to reward Catalonia
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  and secure political alliances, which they argue breaks the
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  constitutional equality of all Spaniards.
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  And what makes this truly fascinating is that it's not
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  just a clean right versus left fight.
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  There is a massive internal divide within the Socialist
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  Party itself. Yeah, that surprised me.
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  PSOE run regions like Castillo, La Mancha and Asturias rejected
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  their own party's proposal. They argue that this system
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  betrays core socialist ideals by rewarding wealthier regions,
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  namely Catalonia, with financial privileges based on the
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  principle called ordinality. Wait, pause there, Ordinality.
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  Break that down for me. What does that actually mean in
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  plain English for a regular? Taxpayer.
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  It's essentially tax bracket logic applied to geography.
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  Let's say Region A is very wealthy and pays a lot of taxes
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  into the national pot. Region B is poorer and pays
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  less. OK, makes sense.
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  Once the central government redistributes that money to
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  ensure everyone has hospitals and schools, ordinality means
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  that Region A shouldn't end up poor per capita than Region B
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  after the redistribution. Oh, OK.
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  The regions opposing this say it undermines the whole concept of
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  national solidarity. They argue the rich should
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  subsidized the poor without guaranteed kickbacks.
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  So it is a fundamental debate over what national solidarity
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  actually looks like. So what happens next?
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  Is this law now? Not at all.
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  It passed the council because the Ministry of Finance
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  automatically holds half the votes.
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  But now it faces the gauntlet in Congress.
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  And even if it passes Congress, the proposal says each region
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  can voluntarily decide whether to adopt this new model or just
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  stick with the old. One, So this is going to be a
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  protracted, messy battle. Very messy.
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  So we have this intense battle over internal political
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  sovereignty and how to slice the financial pie.
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  But you know, while Spain might be politically fractured
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  internally right now, if you zoom out to the global stage,
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  Spain is serving as a massive, undeniable unifier.
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  Yep. It really.
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  IS they have firmly positioned themselves as the ultimate
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  cultural bridge between Europe and Latin America.
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  Which is a brilliant pivot from, you know, domestic gridlock to
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  international soft power. It really is.
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  Just look at what just happened with the Premios Eventude 2026.
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  For the first time in the entire history of these major Latin
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  Music Awards, they left the Americas.
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  That's huge. Yeah.
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  They weren't held in Miami. They weren't in Puerto Rico.
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  They were hosted in Europe, specifically in Marbella, Spain.
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  This was a massive collaboration between Television, Univision
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  and Starlight Marbella. I mean, the logistics and the
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  cultural signaling of moving an institution like that across the
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  Atlantic is immense. Absolutely immense.
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  And look at who dominated the night.
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  Shakira took home 3 awards including best female and the
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  best pop song for Mesime with Alejandra Sans Right.
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  Bad Bunny won best male and best tour.
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  The Spanish phenomenon Atana secured a three wins including
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  best Euro song for Super Estrella.
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  Carol G took album of the year for Tropico Quetta.
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  Incredible lineup. Yeah, and they also honored what
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  they call agentes de cambio, agents of change.
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  These went to icons like Marc Anthony Yandel, Alera Devango
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  and Antonio Banderas. Banderas actually delivered this
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  incredibly moving speech, dedicating the award to the
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  multicultural city of SATA. Wow.
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  But I want to bring this back to you, the listener.
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  Take a second today and open your Spotify or Apple Music.
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  Whatever app you use, look at the global top 50 or even your
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  own playlists. How much of the global Sonic
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  landscape is currently dominated by these exact Latin and Spanish
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  artists? A huge percentage.
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  Yeah, this event in Marbella wasn't just a fun niche award
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  show. It is a physical manifestation
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  of immense dominant global cultural power.
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  It's the very definition of cultural sovereignty.
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  And what ties this entire deep dive together perfectly is a
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  brand new award category they introduced this year.
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  It's called Creator de Espana, which specifically recognizes
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  Spanish digital talent and content creators.
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  Wow, that is the exact intersection of everything we've
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  talked about today. Exactly, it completely marries
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  the cultural export of Latin and Spanish music with the digital
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  sovereignty. Spin is building in the deep
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  tech sector, right? They are realizing that you
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  can't just be a passive consumer of content on platforms built in
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  California or, you know, using hardware built in China.
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  By elevating the creators who drive global digital culture,
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  they are building the intangible equivalent of those quantum data
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  centers. It really is all connected.
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  We started with the physical breakdown of combustion engines
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  and somehow ended up with Bad Bunny and quantum computers.
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  We covered some serious ground today, which leaves us with a
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  final thought to ponder based on everything we've unpacked.
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  Let's hear it. We saw Europe slowly losing its
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  grip on the heavy physical manufacturing of the past,
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  things like cars and steel, but the exact same time we see Spain
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  thriving in the creation and export of intangible assets,
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  cloud data, AI infrastructure and global cultural trends.
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  So could it be that the geopolitical superpower of the
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  future won't actually be defined by who builds the most physical
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  products in concrete factories, but rather by who controls the
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  digital and cultural spaces we live in every single day?
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  Wow, from the sputtering engine of an old industry to the
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  invisible, unstoppable power of data and culture, that is a
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  brilliant thought to leave off on.
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  Thanks for being with us at Spain today, and remember to
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  come tomorrow for more Spanish news in English.