Business News & Financial News

Spanish economy 26th October 2026

Spain: Business confidence drops to lowest levels since 2023

Spanish business owners’ confidence in the trajectory of their finances has reached its lowest level since 2023. This is highlighted by the Business Confidence Indicator published by the National Statistics Institute (INE), which dropped by 1.8% in the fourth quarter of this year. In fact, according to this indicator, it marks the worst fourth quarter since 2023. Currently, 20.5% of business owners are optimistic about how their business will perform…

European economy 20th October 2026

Riots fuel France’s risk premium, hitting highs not seen since 2012

The recent escalation of social tension in France, featuring an intense wave of protests and riots over the high cost of living, has ultimately dealt a direct hit to market confidence in the country’s sovereign debt. The spread between the yield on the 10-year French bond and the German bund (France’s risk premium) has surged to near 148 basis points. This is a peak level not seen since 2012, during…

Brazil elections: Whoever wins, debt reigns

In the World 26th October 2026

Lula wins in Brazil with 51.8% of the vote

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, leader of the Workers’ Party and acting President of Brazil, re-elected his presidency yesterday, October 25, after securing more than 64.2 million votes in the second round of the presidential election—51.8% of the votes cast—compared to the 59.8 million votes obtained by his opponent, the leader of the Liberal Party, Flávio Nantes Bolsonaro. Polls pointed to a very tight result and almost a technical tie….

rosa garcia consejera caixabank acerinox ence

“Many companies complicate CSRD implementation more than necessary”

Rosa Mª García Piñeiro, board member at Caixabank, Acerinox, and Ence—serving as chair of the sustainability committee for the latter two and as a committee member at Caixabank—explains that “the directive does not set the materiality threshold. The company decides it based on its own criteria. There is nothing in the legislation that prescribes what is material and what is not. The auditor-verifier may have one opinion, the company may…

“We are one of Europe’s leading R&D investors: €1.45 billion last year”

“We need to approach negotiations with the U.S. on terms that are completely different from those currently being proposed”

Says Antonio Bonet, president of the Club of Spanish Exporters and Investors. He points out that “Europe has a single tariff applied by all member states, but the U.S. applies a tariff to each country, meaning it can decide that the tariff applied to Spanish black olives is higher than that for Italian olives, as it did at one point. So there is a part of the negotiation between Europe…

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