Live News From Spain As It Happens

ONCE again, Spain holds more blue flags for its beaches and marinas than any other country in the world – a record it has held without interruption for 30 years.

This year, following the official blue-flag awarding procedure, Spain's beaches hold a total of 638 of these prestigious kitemarks – 11 more than in 2023 – with the east-coast province of Alicante boasting the highest number.

Another 102 blue flags went to leisure ports – every single applicant in this category - and seven to tour boats.

Following a trend that began to take off two years ago, a growing number of inland beaches have been applying for – and earning – blue flags, with 11 of these in the land-locked western region of Extremadura, whose nearest sea coast is in Portugal.

The newest inland beach entry is for Lerate Bay in Guesalez, Navarra, a single-province region that does not have a coast.

In fact, despite only eight of the 15 regions in mainland Spain having a sea shore, a total of 11 now have blue-flagged beaches – only Castilla y León and Castilla-La Mancha, in the centre of the country, and Aragón and La Rioja in the north, currently have none.

Spain accounts for 15% of blue-flagged beaches on earth, and has consistently beaten every other country since 1994, with Greece and Turkey second and third.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

TWO of Spain's largest high-street banks are reported to be in merger talks, potentially resulting in the joint entity being the second-biggest in the country in terms of share capital.

BBVA bank's board of directors has confirmed to the media that the firm has expressed an interest in a 'possible fusion' with Banco Sabadell, and 'appointed advisors' on the matter.

Banco Sabadell absorbed the now-defunct and ailing CAM bank during the recession years, increasing its presence on the high street and placing it among the biggest names in the financial services industry.

Its share capital is currently valued at just over €236 billion, of which €185.2bn is held in Spain, according to Banco Sabadell's first-quarter results for 2024.

If the merger were to be accomplished, BBVA would be the dominant player, with nearly €802bn in capital worldwide, of which €452.2bn is based in Spain, the bank's most recent accounts reveal.

In total, the resulting mega-bank would hold a global share capital of €1,037bn and €637.5bn nationally.

The stock market value would reach around €73bn, putting the BBVA-Sabadell enterprise only a fraction behind Banco Santander, currently one of Spain's largest corporations.

This figure is nearly double that of the third-largest bank in Spain, CaixaBank, which has a stock market value of €37.5bn.

Worldwide, BBVA has 5,912 branches, of which 1,881 are in Spain – fewer than half, compared with the much more nationally-based Banco Santander, which has 1,203 branches in Spain out of its global total of 1,414.

Following a merger, the resulting corporation would have 7,326 branches and 140,776 employees, of whom over 46,000 are in Spain.

Impact on staff

Many of these 140,776 employees will be feeling apprehensive about the results of merger negotiations, given that this type of operation usually leads to redundancies.

Whilst a number could be redeployed, and a deal may be struck with older workers allowing them to take early retirement, it is estimated that up to 4,000 jobs may disappear due to duplication – particularly in human resources, finances and treasury – and as a consequence of branch closure.

These predictions have been made by professor Ricardo Zion of the EAE Business School, based upon the result of CaixaBank's merger with the partially State-owned Bankia two years ago, when around 6,000 staff members were made redundant.