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Date Published: 28/10/2024

I'm a British property expert in Spain. Expats coming here are the only reason the country doesn't collapse

Foreign immigrants in Spain are ensuring population growth and economic stability

by John Michael Kirby, Technical Architect and Building Engineer

Shocking statistics from the Spanish National Institute for Statistics (INE) show that foreign-born absolute majorities in 17 municipalities are trending towards a majority in the whole Alicante province in just 15 years.

The impact of this long term seismic demographic regional shift is felt even at a national level.

The dark blue line at the bottom trending rapidly downwards is what is projected to happen to the population of Spain without the positive impact of immigration; the line at the top is the projected growth if immigration levels stay at their current high levels. In conclusion, the population and the economy in Spain will only grow, or to put it another way, avoid a steep irreversible decline, with the continued contribution of positive net immigration from expats.

This is incontrovertible evidence that without the expat contribution to the economy, the future of Spain itself is destined to be bleak. The areas where we settle would face total economic and social devastation. In the following series of articles, I will examine the fact that there is no national, regional or provincial expat political representation and there is only token representation at a local level.

At best, that shows a near total lack of interest in our needs, and at worst a complete misunderstanding of how the Spanish and regional economies work and their evolution as predicted by their own institutions.

“Tourists go home!” was the cry we all heard loud and clear this summer, while attacks were carried out on our compatriots. If tourists really did go home, what would follow is total economic and social collapse. What has happened to those filmed attacking tourists, i.e. those that would summon economic Armageddon for Spain? They are easily identifiable; we have all seen the footage of the unprovoked attacks on young couples made to feel like criminals simply for enjoying a coffee in the sun.

In this chart we can see the demographic prediction considered to be the most likely at a national level. The line at the bottom represents Spanish residents born in Spain, the line at top represents the total population and the difference between the two is made up of expats like you and me.

The INE predicts that by 2074 the expat residents at a national level will rise from 11% to 39%, a rise of almost 400%. That’s an 8% rise, from current figures, every year for the next 50 years.

This chart shows how the domestic population growth is currently negative, it’s the line at the bottom, and is predicted to get increasingly more negative over the next 40 years and remain negative through the entire 50 years studied. This clearly demonstrates that there is no hope for the Spanish economy without positive net immigration and the demographic profile of the entire nation has already undergone, and will inevitably continue to see a radical change in its ethnic, linguistic and economic profile. It’s going to look more and more like you and me.

This profound shift will be felt everywhere but, expats are not evenly distributed throughout the country. One of the principal attractions for new expats is other expats, particularly from their same country, who are already here and have done the hard yards in finding out how things work, or sometimes more to the point how broken they are.

The dark shading is where we are, the darker the colour the more of us there are. Right now I’m in the Valencia region, the second most affected region in terms of total numbers and the forth in terms of percentage of total population, the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands and Catalonia being the only other regions with higher percentages of total population.

Basically, most of us are next to each other (birds of a feather and all that) and we are in the warm sunny bits of the coastal regions. So the predicted rise in expat numbers at a national level, that 400% increase from current levels predicted to happen by 2074, won’t happen in a uniform way over the whole country. It will mostly happen and will be most acutely felt, in the regions of Valencia, Catalonia, Murcia and Andalucía.

The regions with the highest economic growth rates are also predicted to continue to be the engine of economic national growth for the foreseeable future. Not coincidentally, they also happen to be the exact same regions which have received and are predicted to continue to receive lots of expats with healthy bank accounts, good pensions and a desire to spend a lot of it on a nice house and eating out.

In the following table we see that in the province of Alicante of the total 701,305 people employed 528, 546 work in the services sector, that’s 75.36% of all employment in the province. The number of waiters (70,387) is more than the total employment in agricultural and fishing sectors combined. The number of waiters and shop assistants is more than the industrial, agricultural and the fishing sectors combined.

What you are witnessing being described is total economic dependence on tourism, residential tourism i.e. those that buy a property but, don’t live in it all year round and expats like a lot of you and me that do. By the way, 21% of all tourism stems from friends and family coming to visit expats living here. The British spend the most per day (131.70 euros), spend the most total nights by more than a hundred thousand with over 400,000 (Norway and Ireland being a distant second and third) and buy the most property.

In the Valencia region, although the province of Valencia is bigger than the province of Alicante and has a higher general population, it has a significantly lower number of expats.

Alicante currently has more than twice the expat national average as a percentage of its total population and so the effects of increased immigration will be felt here twice as strongly although more acutely as they already have higher expat resident numbers and infrastructure supporting those communities.

Here we see that even in the provinces most affected by expat immigration the distribution is extremely skewed towards areas close to the sea. So those regions/municipalities will be most affected by the predicted increment in expat presence, especially as a total percent of the resident population.

Here is a glimpse of the current ethnic distribution of those areas most affected, which according to the predictions is what awaits most municipalities in the same area very soon.

The Marina Alta is a collection of 33 towns and has an expat population of 72,580, 80% of whom live in the coastal region.

In the town of Llíber, which is not the most affected by expat settlement, they currently have an expat resident population which stands at 64.25% of the total population. The entire coastal region of the Marina Alta stands at 42.12% but this is still 22% above even that. As mentioned it’s not the most extreme case with Rojales standing at 69%, San Fulgencio at 66% and is practically the same as other surrounding towns such as Parcent.

The major difference being that in Llíber almost 100% of the expat residents, that’s over 64% of the entire population of the town, live in illegal homes. Illegal homes that were sold to them as legal homes. They also have a recently appointed municipal technician who, according to his own words to me, doesn’t speak a word of English.

This is the nationality profile of the expats in the town of Llíber. There are more Brits in the town than all the other nationalities added together. The mayor doesn’t speak English and the Municipal Technician doesn’t speak English, expats are the majority of the population, 64.25% and the language they use to speak to each other is English.

The question that begs to be asked is, why in a town where almost 100% of the expat majority live in illegal homes do they choose to appoint a municipal technician incapable of communicating with the population that most needs municipal technical advice? Inclusion cannot be the answer, social marginalisation/exclusion is a real possibility.

The expat profile in the whole Marina Alta region is very similar to Llíber, with Brits only being superseded by adding up the next 6 largest country representations.

The situation in terms of property ownership is even more extreme. There are almost as many Brits who own property here, that is to say, who have an economic stake in the region, but are not resident here as there are British owners that live here all the time. Those figures of 69%, 66% and 64% of expats as a total percentage of the population do not include those owners, therefore potential residents at the drop of a hat, that have seasonal stays in properties they already own.

As a technician and having been a municipal technician myself, I know there are a lot of great technicians that speak English very well, especially in the Alicante area, that could and should have been chosen. Yet we see the deliberate choice of employing staff incapable of communicating with the population they are employed to serve. That flagrant disregard of the needs of a minority would be enough to irk anyone but, when it’s the absolute majority of a population, on the most pressing issue they face and where the majority of their capital/life savings have been deposited it is nothing less than unforgivable. Furthermore, in the name of justice, it cannot be allowed to stand.

In the next article, I’ll discuss in depth how ignoring the needs of the expat population, especially but not exclusively in the realms of town planning and the public administration have led to a landscape ridden with historic injustices and continued inequalities. All of which can, and need to be, urgently rectified.

This total lack of representation facilitates and perpetuates situations such as that described in Lliber and has allowed and encouraged this to be perpetrated throughout the region with total impunity.

Here’s some good news (not so good for those that stand in the way of change): as you have seen, your expat community is large, far from impotent and has a plan. I will describe what can be done to change the situation and examples of how we are doing just that right now.

On a final note; sunlight is the best disinfectant, so write to me with any such injustices that you may have suffered in this area and I’ll do our best to echo your concerns both to your community and to those who can and should make a difference. If they choose not to we’ll shine a light on that too.

John Kirby is a Technical Architect and Building Engineer (UPV), having won the award for outstanding academic achievement. He is the first foreigner to win that award and the only foreigner to ever be Municipal Technical Architect in Spain and a Judicial Property expert witness in Spain. He is Commisioner for Expatriates of the Valencian government and Ambassador for Spain and Gibraltar for Chartered Association of Building Engineers (UK).

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