Exports from Spain to other countries between January and May of this year reached a record value of 165,968 million euros declared in Customs, 6.4% more than in the same period of the previous year and a historical maximum for the first five months of the year, thanks mainly to the sale abroad of cars, fruit, oil and medicines, according to data published this Thursday by the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism.

In this same period of time, our imports from other countries fell by 1.4%, to 180,033 million, with which Spain registered a trade deficit of 14,065 million, lower than last year but higher than in the years prior to the pandemic.. This deficit was mainly due to energy, since Spain depends on foreign energy, but if the purchase and sale of energy products is omitted, the country registered a surplus of 511 million in exports of other types of merchandise.

Although exports reached an unprecedented figure, it must be taken into account that it was due to inflation and the rise in prices, since Spain sold 1.7% less abroad in volume, but at a price that was 8.2% higher. Thus, although our trading partners bought less due to the slowdown in international demand, they paid us more for it due to the rise in prices.

Automobiles were the exported products that reported the highest amount of income to the country, 16,177 million euros in the first fifteen months of the year, 28.3% more than in the same period last year; followed by fruits, vegetables and legumes, which reported 11,043 million euros, 6.5% more; oil and derivatives, which contributed 10,017 million euros to the trade balance, 9.4% less than in 2022 due to the price drop registered this year; and medicines, which accounted for 10,623 million euros, 2.1% more.

Turkey and, to a lesser extent, France, Italy and Germany, were the countries that contributed the most to the increase in car sales; while the car components were destined with special intensity to Morocco, Germany, Poland and Mexico; fruit and vegetables were sold mainly to Germany and Portugal and, to a lesser extent, to the Netherlands and Poland; while there was also an increase in gas sales to Morocco and, far behind, to Italy.

In general terms, exports to the European Union in the period represented 63.6% of the total (62.8% in the same period of the previous year) and rose 7.7% year-on-year; those directed to the euro zone, 55.7% of the total (55.4% in the same period of 2022), grew by 7.1% year-on-year; while 36.4% of the total went to non-EU destinations (37.2% in the same period of 2022) and rose 4.3% year-on-year.

More sales to the EU, less to Algeria and Russia

The main destinations that contributed to the growth of our sales were: France, which bought goods for 25,859 million, 15.6% of the total exported; Germany, which imported Spanish goods for 17,435 million; and Italy, to which we export 14,197 million in goods. On the other hand, the greatest negative contributions corresponded to Algeria (-0.5%), due to the change in position of Spain with respect to the Sahara, the Netherlands (-0.3 points), Gibraltar (-0.1 points) and Russia (-0.1 points), due to the drop in bilateral trade with that country as a result of the war in Ukraine.

Castilla y León was the autonomous community that increased its exports the most in the first fifteen months of the year (+18.9%) given that it is specialized in the sale of automobiles; followed by La Rioja (+16.8%), which mainly exports food and beverages, and Catalonia (+15.0%), specializing in chemical products, cars and capital goods. The latter is the one that makes the greatest contribution to the country's total exports, since they account for 26.4% of the total; followed by the Community of Madrid, whose exports represent 14.2% of the total.

“In January-May 2023, Spanish exports of goods rose by 6.4% year-on-year, a more intense growth than those registered by the euro area (3.0%) and the European Union-27 (3.7%). Among the main economies of the European Union, exports from Germany (3.3%), France (6.7%) and Italy (4.8%) also grew. Outside the European Union, exports from the United Kingdom increased by 9.6% year-on-year, those from the United States by 0.9% year-on-year, those from China by 8.1% year-on-year and those from Japan by 3.5% year-on-year.

Prices in the Eurozone are 5.5% higher than a year ago, a general increase that is no longer only conditioned by the most volatile elements of the consumer basket (energy products and fresh food), since core inflation -which measures the price evolution of all the other goods and services we consume, and is determined above all by processed foods- stood at 6.8% in June, according to data published this Wednesday by Eurostat.

Although the general indicator has moderated six tenths to 5.5% -from the 6.1% it registered in May-, the problem is that the underlying indicator is still very high and only moderated one tenth last month, from 6.9% to 6.8%, an alarming level, given that this indicator measures trend inflation in the economy and serves to intuit how long it will take for prices to fall.

Given that this indicator has not given signs of relief, but rather the opposite, the market takes it for granted that the European Central Bank (ECB) at its next monetary policy meeting next week -on Thursday, July 27- will approve a new quarter-point increase in interest rates, up to 3.75%, a strategy that seeks to tighten financing conditions for families and companies, which will have to tighten their belts, cut consumption and investment, thus cooling the economy and forcing suppliers of goods and services to lower prices. prices.

Its objective is none other than to bring inflation back to healthy ground, that is, around 2%, a level that has not been recorded in the EU since May 2021.

The problem is that the interest rate increases that the ECB has carried out to date have not yet been effective in containing the increase in prices.. On the one hand, due to the time lag: it takes some time from when monetary policy tightens until it has an impact on the behavior of economic agents and, on the other, because the fiscal policy of the EU member countries is acting in the opposite direction, expansively, which contributes to rising inflation.

Another key factor that is making it difficult for inflation to fall is the labor market.. “The labor market remains active, which is a key concern for the ECB. While there are tentative initial signs of cooling off (think vacancy rates have passed their peak), unemployment held steady at a record low of 6.5% in May.. For the ECB, this means that the risk of prolonged wage growth remains, which is an important reason why the ECB is not pausing its hike cycle yet,” explained Bert Colijn, Eurozone economist at ING, who expects not only a rate hike in July (up to 3.75%) but also in September (up to 4%).

In Spain, headline inflation has moderated to reach 1.9% in June -its minimum for the year, predictably-, but core inflation remains at 5.9%. Although in our case the CPI is already rising below 2%, given that the monetary policy is community, we will have to wait for the whole Union to reach reasonable levels of inflation to see how the ECB takes its foot off the accelerator.

In addition, it must be taken into account that this decrease registered in the month of June will be reversed soon, since it is due to the 'step effect' of comparing with a month of June of last year in which prices rose strongly. Funcas experts expect new increases in the coming months and calculate that general inflation will once again be at levels close to 5% in December.

Not having children is a decision that, from a moment on, becomes irreversible. But it is also one that is not taken lightly and that can be based on many reasons.. Those who have already made the decision do not point to a single factor, but they do remember that the reconciliation between family life and work is increasingly complex. In addition, a skyrocketing home and precarious conditions do not help those who are still thinking about whether they want to have children to take the step if they believe that they simply will not be able to afford it.

“I have been selfish, I always say it: I have been selfish for looking after myself and my professional career,” Judith Mateo, a 41-year-old violinist born in Cuenca, but who lives in Madrid, explains by phone.. “It was because of my professional life: I travel a lot, I work on the radio and on TV, I have to study for many hours…”, he adds. “As I was living, I was doing more things professionally and in the end, well, hey, let the other have it, right?”, says the violinist. In addition, in his specific case, the profession adds complications to reconciliation, with unexpected trips and sudden jobs. And it is not just any job, it is his vocation. “I love my profession, if it did not exist, I would not have a life because my life is my profession,” he confesses.. “Having someone who depends 100% on me does not fit into my schedule.”

Elísabet Benavent, a 39-year-old writer, offers a similar vision. “Our parents' generation at 30 had a house and children; our generation is paying abusive rents, they cannot afford to buy a house…. How is a 30-year-old couple going to consider having children in these socioeconomic conditions?. In his opinion, the analyzes should go a little further than one's own paternity or maternity. “People who choose not to be parents or not to be mothers have always known; I think that the fault of the aging of society is not so much of the people who decide not to have children as of the fact that there are many people who would like to and cannot”.

“To have a child you need time and dedication to them,” Mateo qualifies. Around her, she concedes, “everyone has children”: “I think that only when you get together with women artists do you realize that we have all had to choose there”. Although he mentions selfishness, his argument can also be understood from pragmatism. It's a matter of perspective: putting yourself first also means putting no one second. “I have given many violin classes to other people's children and you realize that they don't have time for them or that they enroll them in the conservatory and three or four different things to keep them entertained and to be able to have time for themselves,” he argues.. “Whoever has them has to be aware, it's not like having a dog.”

The writer Elisabet Benavent. John of the Seas

Benavent has also been clear for a long time that he will not want to have children. In his case, he points out, it was not always like this: “At first, when I finished university, I got married very soon and I did have children in mind, but because I never doubted that this was the model I had to follow”. However, when he was still considering it, it was not possible, because at that time he worked in an office and “the economic issue was not very buoyant, and it was evident that I could not afford to have children in that situation”. “Then I began to realize that I had never asked myself if I really wanted to be a mother,” she recalls.. “I had gotten a bit carried away by the inertia of what is supposed to be expected of a woman my age.”

Sometimes it is simply a personal decision without many other conditions; in others, a combination of factors that make it impossible to combine working life with having children. “In my case, I wouldn't know how to tell you the reason, I just know that I don't want to,” illustrates Benavent. He also considers his work “very important” and believes that it could be an impediment, because it involves traveling and he does not have a support network in his city that allows him to balance it.

Anyway, it goes further. “Above all these things is that I don't want to be a mother,” she details. “And I don't want to be a mother because I have actively listened to my needs as an adult and my desires as an adult and being a mother is not among them”. In any case, both interviewees agree that it is something thoughtful and calm, which they know they will not regret.. “When I verbalize that I do not want to be a mother, they treat me with a certain paternalism, they tell me that I am going to change my mind and it will be too late,” laments Benavent. “No, it's a conscious decision,” settles the writer.

“I don't want to have children, but it seems like a miracle to me, a magical thing, and I celebrate my friends' pregnancies with great joy, because I believe that for someone who wants it, it is the most beautiful thing in life,” she contextualizes.. “But I don't think I'm going to regret not having them”. In this sense, they regret that their decision is always judged, regardless of the reason for which it was made.. “I am the typical one who releases a baby from a friend or someone very close to me and I don't know what to do with it,” explains Mateo, but, despite this, his motives are questioned.. “They compare you many times with dogs, like you go crazy for not having children”. “Many times they ask me who is going to take care of me when I am old and it seems to me a terrible argument to encourage people to have children,” adds Benavent.. “That does seem selfish to me: having children to take care of you when you are old seems a bleak prospect to me.”

Where does the value of art reside? Heidegger said that being did it in language. The art market, of course, is full of words. Often, valuations at auctions escalate to staggering numbers because of the testosterone of owning the quad.

The CEOE has approved this Wednesday in the General Assembly to end the limitation of two mandates that existed to date for its president, Antonio Garamendi, who will now be able to run again in 2026 for internal elections to be revalidated in office and, if elected, continue at the head of the business association until at least 2030.

The leadership of the CEOE points out that the change had been preparing for months and that it has been carried out at the proposal of the organizations that make up the employers' association and that they asked their president to do so, but the truth is that when the Executive Committee endorsed the modification of the Statutes a month ago there were some internal voices that expressed their concerns. Some, in addition, had recently modified their statutes to adapt them to nationals and now they will have to explain to their members that they have been left alone in that limitation..

After going through the Executive Committee, the proposal has received the green light from the Internal Regime Commission and by the Committee and the Board of Directors, before being approved this Wednesday in the General Assembly held at the headquarters of the Spanish Olympic Committee. The change has gone ahead in the Assembly unanimously except for the abstention of one of the members present, who has absented immediately after the vote. A total of 502 members participated between present and represented.

“It is a question that some of our organizations had asked us to examine because the right of the Assembly to elect and re-elect whoever presents the candidacy for the presidency was taken away,” explained Mirenchu del Valle, president of UNESPA and vice president of CEOE and president of the Internal Regime Commission, before the vote.

In the Assembly this Wednesday, the CEOE has also modified the electoral regime and calendar and the processes to be able to elect the organization's president, has approved the 2022 Annual Report, the 2022 accounts and the 2023 Budget.

Make it difficult for other candidates

The modification of the electoral regime means that the candidates who want to present themselves to preside over the organization will now need to have the endorsement of 10% of the voters -the equivalent of some 78 members representing at least 6 organizations-, while before the support of 20 members was enough.

This increase in the number of endorsements necessary to be able to run will make it difficult for some major organizations within the CEOE to present their candidate unilaterally, since only Cepyme exceeds that number of members by itself, while to date they could.. Now they will need to previously seek the support of the members of other organizations.

The General Assembly has also approved that if there is only one candidate in an electoral process, the ballot box is removed and the vote does not take place: the candidate will automatically be proclaimed president.

The modification will put obstacles to the fact that other candidates can attend the elections, which together with the end of the limitation of two terms for the president, seems to seek to pave the way for Antonio Garamendi to perpetuate himself sine die at the head of the organization.

Garamendi benefited from the cap in 2018

It was in 2014 when Juan Rosell, the then president of the employers' association, established this cap to limit the mandates. He had been leading the employers' association for four years and complied with the limit established then in the Statutes and left the Presidency in 2018, after two terms.

The Basque businessman Antonio Garamendi benefited from this limitation and was the one who took over from Rosell, assuming the CEOE Presidency in 2018 and being elected last year for a second term.

Before the arrival of Rosell and Garamendi, the CEOE had three other presidents whose mandate was not limited: Carlos Ferrer Salat, José María Cuevas and Gerardo Díaz Ferrán. Of them, the one who was at the controls of the business organization the longest was José María Cuevas, no less than 23 years.

The National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) has fined a total of 194.15 million euros to different companies of the Amazon and Apple groups for agreeing and executing certain restrictions of competition in the online market or 'market place' of Amazon that affect third-party resellers of Apple products and competing products of the apple firm.

As reported by the agency, both companies agreed in 2018 to sign two contracts in which they updated Amazon's conditions as an authorized Apple distributor.. The market supervisor points out that, in this way, only a series of distributors designated by Apple itself could sell Apple brand products through the Amazon website in Spain. As a consequence, “more than 90% of the resellers who had been using the Amazon website in Spain for the retail sale of Apple products were excluded from the main online market in Spain”.

The benefit of both technology giants with this agreement would be explained because, in addition to the drop in business from sellers not authorized by Apple on Amazon, Apple's sales in the digital market were thus concentrated in Amazon itself.

Unauthorized Apple distributors, generally small operators who do not have a direct commercial relationship with the iPhone manufacturer but who sell their products with their consent and who were the most active on the Amazon website in Spain, were thus prevented from making offers, as was the case with the products of other competitors such as Samsung.

Finally, they limited the possibility of Amazon directing marketing campaigns to customers of Apple products on its website in Spain to offer them competing products from other brands.. The fine for the two companies is shared with a greater penalty for Apple and its companies, which will have to face a penalty of 143.6 million euros, and Amazon with 50.5 million euros.

Amazon “disagrees” with the CNMC's decision and plans to appeal it. It also rejects the entity's suggestion that it benefits from excluding sellers from its store, as its business model “is based precisely on the success of companies that sell through Amazon, many of which are SMEs.”

Amazon sources highlight that, as a result of the agreement with Apple, the catalog of products such as the iPad has multiplied by five on its website, where there are also increases in other devices from the apple firm.. The agreement also made the number of purchases of newly launched technology products, such as the iPhone or iPad, up to 89 times higher than in a previous comparable period.

In a similar vein, Apple justifies the agreement it reached with the technology within the protection of users against counterfeit products, which until the date of the agreements was high by the standards of the Cupertino company in the Amazon marketplace.. “We plan to appeal the Court's decision before the Spanish National Court,” says a company spokesman.

PRECEDENT IN ITALY

This is not the first fine that the two companies have received for this series of agreements, which, in addition to Spain, were closed in some of the main world markets such as the United States, the United Kingdom, India, Japan, France or Italy.. Precisely, the transalpine country was a pioneer in sanctioning these practices and filed an initial fine of 184 million euros, which was later reduced to 173 million euros.

The fine was finally annulled in October 2022 by an Italian court. However, the decision was made due to a procedural error by the country's competition authority, which, in the court's opinion, did not give the parties enough time to defend themselves against the accusations.

For this reason, it is uncertain to predict the judicial course of the appeal of the technological companies. In this same procedure, which was opened at the end of 2021, Apple already filed an appeal for the terms established by the CNMC to access the room in which the confidential data of the file was consulted and which was dismissed.

Itziar González's professional career can only be understood from the need to find answers. He played all kinds of sports and decided to study physiotherapy to try to understand the reason behind his continuous injuries.. Since he did not find it, he was about to give up and go to study medicine. However, just at the right time, he heard in a course that diet could be the key to his problems.. In just a few weeks, the injuries and chronic pain that she attributed to training disappeared.

So, he wanted to continue finding answers to his questions and delved into biochemistry and nutrition until he reached nutrigenomics, the omics science that studies the alteration of genes through nutrients.. That is, the science that reprograms our genes through food. For her, the solution to all her questions: “Adapting nutrition to the genome could cure almost any disease,” says Itziar González in Buscando Vocaciones. Although he warns: “The ideal would be to have found the magical diet of eternal life, but it does not exist.”

Itziar González treats elite athletes and First Division footballers such as Navarro, Canales or Carvajal.

Yes, food heals and by the year 2028, barely five years from now, the nutrigenomics market is expected to exceed 1,200 million euros worldwide. But Itziar González has gone one step further, creating physiogenomics, which uses nutrigenomics to treat pathologies typical of physiotherapy.. Once again, the need to find answers was the engine of his desire for knowledge.. One of her children fell ill with acute leukemia, luckily already cured, and at that time, she spent sleepless nights trying to understand how the immune system works.. For example, psoriasis makes sprains easier, so it's the psoriasis that needs to be treated, not the joint.. And if, for example, you suffer from migraines, do not eat foods that contain or release histamine, such as orange juice, coffee or nuts.

«It is necessary to understand the body in its entirety, since there is nothing local. If a person has a headache, they have a problem throughout their body,” insists Itziar González, who, through word of mouth, began to collect followers, especially elite athletes.. This is the case of the soccer player Sergio Canales, his number one fan. After suffering three cruciate ligament tears, they thought he would never play again, but Itziar not only helped him get back on the field, but also helped him reach the highest level of his career.

“I have seen miracles every day in the more than twenty years that I have been working,” Itziar González is sincere. And he says: “The solution is always multidisciplinary, a single discipline will never give you the solution”. It only takes people who want to continue finding answers to the questions.

Like Itziar González, other great references in our society have left their testimonies, the lessons they have learned in their lives and in their profession, in Buscando Vocaciones, the project with which the European University seeks to inspire young people who are about to start their university stage, as well as those people who need a change in their job training.

Drawing the future from our present, Aitor Sánchez, dietitian, nutritionist and author of My limping diet, has already emphasized the importance of nutrition: “For a sustainable future, food has a fundamental role”. Meanwhile, Raquel Fernández, a physiotherapist at the Gregorio Marañón University Hospital, also opted to improve people's living conditions: “Physiotherapy achieves a better life for patients.” “Physiotherapists do not heal injuries, we heal people,” seconded Carlos J. García, Marc Márquez's physiotherapist.