Spain in political crisis goes to the vote, but why is the GDP growing more than that of Italy?

Spain in political crisis goes to the vote, but why is the GDP growing more than that of Italy?

Pedro Sanchez has decided to end the legislature in Spain early and return to the polls on November 29th. The political crisis was triggered by the protests over the housing emergency, while from an economic point of view the country is considered a success story in Europe even compared to Italy: this was also discussed on 5 October in Numeri, an in-depth analysis by Sky TG24.

Pedro Sanchez often cites the country's economic growth: from 2018, the year he became prime minister, to 2025 Spain grew by 12.5%. The other large European states did worse: Italy and France recorded growth of 6.7%, while Germany recorded just 2.2%.

Spain's economic success is based heavily on one fact: the country's population has grown by 2.4 million people since 2018, while in Italy it has decreased by 1.5 million. And obviously the increase in population has a positive effect on GDP.

This phenomenon is made evident by the growth of GDP per capita, i.e. the gross domestic product divided by the number of people: the ranking changes radically, with Italy in the lead with +9.7% and Spain in second position with a still good +6.4%. France, on the other hand, stops at +4.8% while Germany is essentially stable with +0.2%.

But why has the population of Spain grown so much, even compared to the trend in Italy? It is not the number of births that matters: Madrid in fact has even worse data than Rome for the number of children per woman, just 1.10 in 2024, second to last in the European Union.

Population growth is therefore driven by immigration. In Spain, however, the context is particular, even in comparison with other European countries: if we look, for example, at the number of foreigners regularized in terms of employment by the country this year, out of over 400 thousand cases processed, 300 thousand (70%) concern people arriving from states where the language is Spanish.

A good part of this immigration comes from Central and South America. Unlike other European countries - including France, which has French-speaking immigration but not as extensive - Spain is a particular place where the integration of migrants into the workforce is simpler: this has created a convergence of factors that has led to this economic growth.