Doing Business In Spain
First things first, Spain is an awful country to do business in if your a small or medium sized company.
It currently has the largest unemployment rate in the EU, was one of the first to get hit by the economic crisis, it has hit the lowest depths of recession and will be the last EU country out of it. This poor nation has this huge uphill struggle whilst trying to pay for 8000 local town hall administrations (compared to about 400 in the UK) and Auntonomous regional governments who all pull in their own direction and scupper any hope Madrid has of moving the country forwards. The levels of corruption can be seen at the flick of channel pretty much any day of the week on national and local TV stations, pushing back any thoughts of stopping the heamorraging of public funds to help cut the defiiet. Even though some politicians and property developers do actually make it to court for theft, corruption and embezelment the police themselves are too busy beating democratic critics of the system including the press, whilst conveniently avoiding prosecution.
So, running a big business? Congratulations! It's quite easy especially if your a huge multi national like Telefonica who puts billions a year in the bottomless coffers of the state, you can abuse the public and pretty much get away with nothing more than an eventual frown from toothless watchdogs. Being a consumer in Spain is an awful affair with companies like this thinking they run a monopoly still.
So running a small business? Ouch! The first thing you need to understand is that whilst the UK is a nation of shopkeepers, Spain is a country of Civil Servants. With 40 years of dictatorship General Franco's regiem created multiple layers of administration and beaurocracy to control everything aspect of life. Permits are needed pretty much everything and there is very little explanation of what's needed and recourse is all but non existant. Oh and if you forget to take two photocopies of everything you have to begin it all again. Should you ever feel like asking about service levels or customer charters in state or council departments they wouldn't have a clue but they would probably still ask you to take another number ticket and stand in a queue to check at another desk. Small wonder the EU is demanding that Spain reign in some of these ridiculous public spending black holes which have left the country hot on the tail of Greece, Ireland and Portugal in the race to crash the Euro. With a constant fight to win votes even at the expense of the nations interests, there is a distinct lack of 'cojones' amongst even the honest politicians to put half a million of these paper pushers on the dole queue, make running a business simpler and use the savings to create more jobs and business. So sadly for the time there is a crazy amount of red tape to deal with, taxes and fines to pay and lots of queues to stand in just to be able to proclaim you run a business.
Oh, and in case the penny hasn't dropped yet, it's the tax payers and business owners who pay for the mismanagement of this second world economy. The 10% who operate in the black economy obviously don't contribute which increases the burden on everyone else. So whether it's a local government official extorting businesses for some new 'impuesto revolucionario' or a town hall buying more tow trucks to increase their income for badly parked cars, the last remaining stones get squeezed even harder for those last few drops of blood.
Still want to do business in Spain?
Well it can be a good place to do business. New skills, abilities and technologies from the UK can be seen as fresh and innovative in Spain. Since the entrepreneurial spirit is on a permanent siesta in Spain (as acknowledged by the Spanish Prime Minister himself) it means there's a lot of gaps in a lot of markets to be plugged. But you need to do it correctly, in a well informed well advised manner to avoid the pitfalls of this backwards administrative system. So first port of call......a damned good English speaking accountant who understands the system and understands the English entrepreneurial spirit!