What households and businesses pay for electricity, gas and fuel, what the government pays to borrow, and how the stock market has moved, compared with France, Italy, Portugal, Germany and the euro area. Energy prices depend on world fuel markets, on how electricity is generated, on regulation and on taxes and levies, which governments set. Bond yields and share prices move with the world economy and the European Central Bank's interest rates as well as with national policy. Vertical lines mark Spanish tax and price measures under every government (cuts and rises) and, on the bond charts, European Central Bank decisions that applied to every country. Shaded bands mark who was in office; Lag lines results up with the government in office one or two years earlier.
Household electricity
€ per kWh paid by a medium household (2,500–5,000 kWh a year), twice a year.
About a third of Spanish households are on the regulated PVPC tariff, which follows the daily wholesale price (partly futures prices from 2024), so market swings reach bills faster than in most peer countries. In 2021–24 every country shown cut taxes or capped prices, in different ways: France capped regulated tariffs, Germany scrapped its renewables levy (July 2022) and capped prices (2023), Italy removed system charges. Household figures before 2017 were reported voluntarily.
Business electricity
€ per kWh paid by a medium-sized business (500–2,000 MWh a year), twice a year.
Household gas
€ per kWh paid by a household using 20–200 GJ a year, twice a year.
Pump prices
€ per litre, monthly average of the weekly prices reported to the European Commission.
Pump prices follow crude oil, refining margins and the euro–dollar exchange rate. Excise duty is a fixed amount per litre and is lower in Spain than in France, Germany or Italy, which explains most of the gap with taxes. Prices are national averages reported weekly by each country.
10-year government bond yield
Interest rate on 10-year government bonds, monthly, % a year.
Yields move largely with the European Central Bank's interest rates and expected inflation. Gaps between countries reflect markets' assessment of each country's public debt, how easily its bonds trade, and the ECB's bond purchases (2015–2022).
Spread over Germany
Each country's 10-year yield minus Germany's, percentage points. Germany's bonds are the usual euro area benchmark.
Share prices
Index of share prices on each country's stock market as a whole, monthly, 2015 = 100. Listed companies earn much of their money abroad, so a stock index is not a measure of the domestic economy. Differences between countries largely reflect which sectors dominate each market (in Spain, banks and utilities) and interest rates. Lines show change since 2015, so the gaps between countries depend on that base year.
Not adjusted for inflation or dividends.