Salvador de Mello, group chief executive of the José de Mello Group, confirmed on 12 August 2026 that Lifthium Energy, the group's green lithium subsidiary, will not proceed with its planned €492 million lithium refinery in Estarreja, Portugal. The withdrawal removes one of the most prominent downstream processing bets in Iberian critical minerals. "Despite all the effort that was made to secure long-term contracts to allow investment in a factory, this was not possible, ther

Active Space Technologies, the Coimbra-based engineering company, has secured its largest contract to date, a manufacturing order for structural components across 340 satellites, valued at between €2.5 million and €3 million, with delivery due by June 2028. The customer is a European prime contractor involved in a satellite constellation programme. Its identity has not been disclosed under a confidentiality agreement. Active Space has been embedded in the programme's supply c

Bilateral trade between Spain and Libya expanded sharply in the first half of 2026, according to data published by the Spanish Embassy in Libya. Spanish exports to Libya reached €324.5 million, a rise of 114.6% year on year. Libyan exports to Spain totalled €2,267.09 million between January and June, a gain of 66.8%. The corridor is structurally asymmetric. Libya sends hydrocarbons. Spain sends goods. Full-year 2024 trade data show Libya's exports to Spain were concentrated a

Iberconsa reported a 5% revenue decline in 2025 alongside a 34.1% surge in liabilities, as Argentina's red shrimp season delivered its shortest and lowest-yielding harvest in a decade. The Vigo-based group operates a fleet of 48 vessels across Argentina, Namibia, and South Africa, holding a combined fishing quota of 106,000 metric tons. That quota ownership, covering frozen hake, Argentine red shrimp, and squid species across the South Atlantic and Southern Africa, is the str

Marcos Valera, Roberto Oliver, and Jorge Calvo co-founded Healthmate in February 2024 at the Scientific Park of Miguel Hernández University in Elche. Eighteen months later, the startup's AI-powered virtual receptionist is running the administrative layer of 100 private clinics across Spain, having processed 800,000 messages from approximately 30,000 patients. The product sits inside WhatsApp and handles the full administrative cycle, appointment booking, confirmations, remind

The pitch was strong. The deck was polished. The references were impeccable, drawn from deployments across Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. The product worked. The foreign vendor had done everything right, and when the Spanish client went quiet after the third meeting, the account executive assumed the deal needed nurturing. He followed up on Tuesday. He followed up again on Thursday. The client thanked him for his diligence, took two more weeks, and then signed with a l

Acciona Energía has opened a 42-bay public EV charging station at the El Faro shopping centre in Badajoz, Extremadura, in one of the largest public charging deployments by a single operator in Spain to date. The site carries 2,000kW of contracted power, distributed across four 240kW ultra-fast chargers serving eight bays, ten 80kW fast chargers serving 20 bays, and seven 22kW AC chargers covering the remaining 14 bays. Hardware is supplied by Circutor, the Spanish EV charging

Google inaugurated its Nuvem transatlantic submarine cable system on 21 July 2026, at a ceremony held at the Lisbon Oceanarium. The cable runs approximately 7,000 kilometres from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, touching Bermuda and the Azores before landing at Sines on Portugal's Alentejo coast. Nuvem is designed with 16 fibre pairs and a planned capacity of 384 terabits per second, supplied by SubCom. The system is owned and operated by Starfish Infrastructure Inc., an indirec

The sales deck was excellent. The product was competitive. The follow-up email, drafted in clean, professional English, arrived within twenty-four hours. The Barcelona distributor read it, forwarded nothing, and never replied. It was not the product that failed. It was the assumption behind the language that carried it. For most Northern European executives entering Iberia, English functions as a neutral professional register. It is the language of business travel, of LinkedI

The Portuguese government has identified Circuito Estoril, S.A., the state-owned company managing the historic Autódromo Fernanda Pires da Silva, as a candidate for privatisation under a review of the State Business Sector. A government-commissioned report classifies the company as a non-strategic asset, opening the door to a disposal that the state estimates could generate €6.96 million. The recommendation is non-binding. No final decision has been taken, but the process is

Glória Ortiz, CEO of Bankinter, disclosed that the bank's Portuguese operation granted €800 million in new mortgage loans between January and June 2026, a figure she shared during a Q&A session with journalists following the bank's half-year results presentation. The disclosure matters for a structural reason. Bankinter entered Portugal in 2016 by acquiring Barclays' retail network and currently holds eighth place in the Portuguese market with a 3.48% share. Those €800 millio

Diogo Pereira Dias, CEO of Sumol Compal, has confirmed the Carnaxide-based beverages group is planning its first mainstream US market entry, targeting a launch by 2028 through a co-manufacturing and distribution partnership that avoids direct capital investment in production facilities. The move is a direct response to a revenue concentration problem. Sumol Compal's 2024 turnover reached €385 million, of which only €65.8 million came from outside Portugal, leaving roughly 83%

India's Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal met Spain's Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo Caballero and Industry Minister Jordi Hereu Boher in Madrid between 13 and 18 July, with both sides committing to accelerate technical discussions on linking India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) with Bizum, Spain's mobile instant-payment platform. No commercial agreement, pilot programme, or go-live date has been announced. India's Commerce Ministry confirmed the commitment. The

Renfe Proyectos Internacionales (RPI), the international consulting subsidiary of Spain's national railway operator Renfe, signed a memorandum of cooperation with Ukrzaliznytsia, Ukraine's state-owned national rail network, on or around 17 July 2026. The agreement was announced by Ukrzaliznytsia via its official Telegram channel. The memorandum covers automatic gauge-change technology, interconnection between track systems, development of 1,435 mm European standard gauge in U

The German software founder arrived in Madrid with a polished deck, a LinkedIn connection, and a meeting he had booked cold through a mutual-interest group online. The meeting happened. It was warm, curious, and ran twenty minutes over time. His counterpart asked detailed questions. He left certain something was moving. He followed up the next day. Then again three days later. The replies came, friendly but brief, and then stopped. Three months passed. He heard nothing. The d

The BarMar hydrogen pipeline joint venture formally launched on 3 July 2025 with the signing of a Shareholders' Agreement and immediately advanced the project into its front-end engineering design phase, moving the 400 km subsea link between Barcelona and Marseille from feasibility into concrete industrial modelling. BarMar is the operating vehicle for what would become the world's first cross-border subsea hydrogen pipeline at this scale. It is promoted by Enagás (Spain), Na

Reinsberg Group, the European medtech platform owned by Czech investment group BHM Group, has acquired Tedisel Medical, a Badalona-based manufacturer of hospital infrastructure equipment founded in 1995. Financial terms were not disclosed. Tedisel Medical designs and manufactures bedhead units for inpatient and neonatal wards, ceiling-mounted supply pendants for intensive care and critical areas, technical panels, and operating-room software. It competes directly with Dräger,

The call had gone well. The Northern European firm had flown two partners to Madrid, been received warmly at the family's offices, shared a long lunch, and come away with what felt unmistakably like enthusiasm. The patriarch had leaned forward. He had asked detailed questions. He had introduced his eldest son. Back in Amsterdam, the partners wrote up their notes and sent a follow-up proposal within the week. Then they sent another. Then, after three weeks of silence, they cal

US President Donald Trump on 8 July 2026 verbally ordered an immediate halt to all trade with Spain during a press conference at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, directing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to act at once. "Cut off all trade with Spain, please, including visits… Don't even talk to them. They're hopeless, bad people." — Donald Trump, US President. No executive order or formal legal instrument accompanied the statement. The White House had not provided details

Sérgio Vieira, CEO and co-founder of BIZAY, announced a €48.75 million Series D on 7 July 2026, alongside the company's first profitable year and annual revenue set to surpass €88.6 million. The round was led by Indico Capital Partners, an existing investor since the 2020 Series C, with participation from Lince Capital, Cedrus, and BPF. Prior rounds had brought total pre-Series D funding to approximately €72 million. BIZAY is a mass-customisation platform that lets SMEs order