Here is the revised Spain summary with the corrections applied. Verified claims are tightened, admitted nuances added, unverified items removed, and one conflict noted, all in the same clear style without headings or bullets, with the weather at the end.
Spain’s political attention remains fixed on Ceuta, the North African exclave where a migrant crisis has grown into the most serious challenge yet to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government. The trouble dates to July 30 and 31, when around 72,000 people crossed from Morocco into the city of 84,000, most returning quickly but several thousand remaining in makeshift camps on beaches and streets. The crossing descended into tragedy, with the death toll reported at 24 or more and sources differing on the exact count. The government has apologized to residents, declared a situation of interest for national security, and earmarked 309 million euros for social services, with special attention to housing migrants, the local economy and security. The crisis turned sharply political this week after reports that a National Police intelligence submission to the National Court indicated Moroccan gendarmes showed “total permissiveness” during the crossings, with a deployment far smaller than usual. Sánchez, addressing an extraordinary session of Congress on Thursday, September 3, acknowledged that for roughly ten hours at the height of the July 30 crossings Morocco’s Gendarmerie allowed the border to be crossed, while insisting that no institution has provided solid evidence that Morocco planned or orchestrated the incident and rejecting the characterization of his own government as passive or complicit. The backlash has been intense: protests have spread across cities nationwide, with tens of thousands marching in Madrid and elsewhere, opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo accusing the government of a cover-up, and even junior coalition partner Sumar pressing for accountability at the Interior Ministry. Sánchez has responded by promising absolute transparency, committing to publish key reports, and Spain has summoned Morocco’s ambassador over unacceptable statements by two Moroccan ministers concerning Ceuta and Melilla. Prosecutors, meanwhile, have recorded 23 sexual assaults since the influx, including nine against children, with Ceuta’s chief prosecutor describing an exponential increase in sexual violence against migrant women and girls; Morocco’s justice minister has stirred matters further by calling for talks on the future of the enclaves, a question Madrid refuses to put on the table.
In domestic news, the heat has been the other defining story. An early-September heat dome parked over southern Europe pushed temperatures across Spain’s lowlands toward 40 degrees over the weekend. In Andalusia, with the mercury hitting 41 degrees on Friday.
On the business and economy front, the picture remains one of a country outperforming its peers but sweating over prices. Spain expanded 0.7 percent quarter-on-quarter in the second quarter, outpacing Germany and the eurozone average of 0.4 percent, and economists expect the outperformance to continue, supported by employment gains boosted by immigration. Corporate Spain has had a busy stretch: private markets sent mixed signals over the summer, with venture funding in the second quarter jumping 90 percent from the previous quarter to 1.1 billion euros, its strongest level since late 2021, highlighted by HR-software firm Factorial joining the unicorn ranks, while private-equity investment slowed markedly, down nearly two-thirds from its exceptional 2025 pace, though the year kept its large-deal pipeline alive with Blackstone and EQT’s 5.6-billion-euro buyout of waste-management group Urbaser and Blackstone’s 1.2-billion-euro sale of its Fidere residential portfolio to Brookfield. Inflation climbed to 3.6 percent in May amid the Middle East energy shock and has stayed sticky since. Banking remains in the headlines: Santander is on track to meet its 2026 profitability and revenue targets after a profitable first half, and on Tuesday September 8 the Banco Santander Foundation unveils Faro Santander, a striking new museum and cultural hub in the northern coastal city of Santander, opening with exhibitions from the Banco Santander Collection and the contested Gelman Collection of Mexican modern art, whose export to Spain has stirred protest in Mexico. Airline news drew attention too, with reports that Blackstone is weighing a six-to-seven-billion-euro public listing of its Spanish resorts group Hotel Investment Partners, a deal that would signal renewed confidence in the country’s tourism assets. Tourism, the engine of the economy, continues to thrive: the World Travel and Tourism Council forecasts Spain’s sector will grow 3.7 percent this year, outperforming the wider European economy, even as the scale of the inflow keeps the domestic debate simmering over overcrowding and housing pressure in hotspots from Barcelona to the Canary Islands. On the policy front, ministers have been active in Brussels, where the windfall-tax letter Madrid signed alongside other European capitals remains on the Commission’s desk amid the energy-price pressure stemming from the conflict around the Strait of Hormuz.
Looking at the weather now. Spain is in the grip of an intense early-September heat dome, with forecasters warning of temperatures near 40 degrees in low-lying areas of the south through early in the week, roughly ten to fourteen degrees above seasonal norms, and the state weather agency AEMET has warnings active, including for heat on parts of the Mediterranean coast and unseasonable light rain in the south, where Seville has seen showers alongside extreme heat, while a yellow warning for 36 degrees was issued for the Marina Alta area of Alicante province. Conditions on the ground this evening show Madrid baking in clear sunshine at around 34 degrees with very low humidity and a light westerly breeze, while Barcelona is cooler and grayer at about 28 degrees under overcast skies with higher humidity. Over the next three days, the heat gradually begins to loosen its grip: Monday stays hot with Madrid near 33 degrees under sunny skies, Tuesday eases slightly to around 32, and the north and east take the unsettled side of the pattern, with AEMET flagging generalized rain across northern and eastern peninsular regions as the week progresses. By Thursday and Friday, temperatures in Madrid trend down toward 29 degrees, and forecasters hint at a broader thermal drop-off thereafter, though they caution that the heat dome’s persistence in the south keeps the wildfire risk live on the parched landscape, so it is worth monitoring AEMET alerts if you are traveling, hiking or attending outdoor events over the coming days.