Spain’s royals to attend Pope Francis funeral, Spanish PM to hike defence spending to 2 percent of GDP, Spain has highest rate of overqualified workers in the EU and more news on Wednesday April 23rd.
Spain’s royals to attend Pope Francis funeral
King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain will join world leaders attending Pope Francis’s funeral at the Vatican on Saturday.
Addressing a Madrid reception on Tuesday, Felipe said the 88-year-old Argentine pontiff transcended the Catholic Church to become “an enormous ethical beacon of our world, of our time”.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will not accompany them, Justice Minister Félix Bolaños told reporters after signing a book of condolence for Francis in Madrid.
The Spanish delegation headed by the royals “will be made up of first deputy prime minister María Jesús Montero, second deputy prime minister Yolanda Díaz, the leader of the opposition Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and myself”, said Bolaños.
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Spain has highest rate of overqualified worker in the EU
In Spain, overqualification has become a persistent phenomenon affecting a large portion of the working population.
According to the latest Eurostat data, 35 percent of Spanish workers with a university degree are working in positions that do not require such high qualifications.
This is the highest rate in the whole of the EU, where the average of qualified workers is 20.7 percent.
Spain is followed by Greece (32.3 percent) and Austria (26.8 percent), while countries such as Luxembourg (4.3 percent), the Czech Republic (10.6 percent), and Croatia (12.3 percent) have the lowest levels of overqualification in the EU.
Vast majority of young Spaniards are anxious about driving
According to the latest report by EasyPark, 83.2 percent of young people under 34 in Spain confirm that driving stresses them out.
Among those under 24, the number of those who are anxious about driving is even higher: 87.8 percent.
The study suggests therapy as a way people can overcome their fears about getting behind the wheel.
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Spain to hike defence spending to 2 percent of GDP in 2025
Spain will invest more than €10 billion to increase its defence spending — proportionally NATO’s lowest — to two percent of annual economic output this year, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Tuesday.
The announcement accelerates a previous timeline that set 2029 as the target year to reach the benchmark agreed by NATO allies but deemed too low by US President Donald Trump.
Russia’s three-year-old invasion of Ukraine and Trump’s questioning of decades-long US security guarantees have seen Europe scramble to design new defence strategies with bigger budgets in the quest for greater autonomy.
“It is essential that we meet the investment targets our partners demand,” Sánchez told a news conference as he announced plans to spend €10.47 billion ($12 billion).
The aim is to “consolidate Spain as a central and trustworthy member of the European Union and the Atlantic alliance in a world dominated by uncertainty”, the Socialist premier added.
Spain dedicated 1.28 percent of its annual economic output to defence last year, a lower proportion than any other member, according to NATO figures.
Sánchez’s minority government relies on small far-left groups and separatist parties traditionally hostile to NATO and alignment with US foreign policy, complicating his efforts to hike defence spending.
Spanish media reported that the Socialists’ far-left junior coalition partner Sumar fiercely opposed the move during Tuesday’s cabinet meeting.
Attempting to assuage such concerns, Sánchez said the new cash would come “without raising taxes, without touching a cent of investment in the welfare state and without incurring a larger public deficit”.
Less than one-fifth of the new investment will go towards “the purchase of armaments in the most traditional sense of the term”, while almost one third will be ploughed into “acquiring new telecommunications and cybersecurity capabilities each year”, he added.
A further 17 percent of the plan will “strengthen the dual capacities” of the army to help manage emergencies and natural disasters, he announced.
It was unclear whether NATO would accept counting that money as part of annual defence spending.
Sánchez confirmed the spending plan would not be submitted to a vote in parliament, infuriating the main conservative opposition Popular Party, which called it “not serious or democratic”.
