Spain's economic case for more migration
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 4 February 2026
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Spanish government has announced plans to legalise the status of half a million undocumented migrants. Many arrive with student or tourist visas but overstay and start working on the black market.
Migration is a polarising issue in western Europe, so why is Spain keen to hurry up the process of regularisation? One reason is that Spain’s economy has been outstripping its European Union partners. In 2024 the economy grew by 3.5% but in sectors that struggle to recruit enough workers, so Spain wants its migrant population to work in a legal way to keep its economic momentum going.
We meet some of the people the Spanish government wants to give legal status to and speak to organisations that are helping them to work legally.
If you'd like to get in touch with the team, you can send us an email to businessdaily@bbc.co.uk
Presented and produced by Ashish Sharma
Business Daily is the home of in-depth audio journalism devoted to the world of money and work. From small startup stories to big corporate takeovers, global economic shifts to trends in technology, we look at the key figures, ideas and events shaping business.
Each episode is a 17-minute deep dive into a single topic, featuring expert analysis and the people at the heart of the story.
Recent episodes explore the weight-loss drug revolution, the growth in AI, the cost of living, why bond markets are so powerful, China's property bubble, and Gen Z's experience of the current job market.
We also feature in-depth interviews with company founders and some of the world's most prominent CEOs. These include the CEO of Google Sundar Pichai, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, and billionaire founder Judy Faulkner of Epic Systems, one of the world's largest medical record software providers.
(Photo: View of Madrid city skyline from a sky bar terrace where people are gathered. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:06.4 | Hello, you're listening to Business Daily with me, Ashih Sharma. |
| 0:10.4 | I'm standing outside the Congress building here in Spain's capital Madrid. |
| 0:14.6 | In the last year, the Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, has been talking up the positives of migration into his country. |
| 0:21.2 | My country has offered a path to regulate half a million undocumented migrants. |
| 0:26.1 | Half a million people we live with every day. |
| 0:29.0 | At the market on the bus, at our children's school, |
| 0:32.3 | people who care for our parents, |
| 0:34.4 | work in the fields who have built hand-in in hand with us the progress of our country. |
| 0:39.8 | People who were already here, already part of our lives. |
| 0:43.6 | In this program, I'll talk to some of the people that Sanchez is referring to |
| 0:47.5 | and find out whether this process is as simple as the government seems to suggest. |
| 0:52.9 | No country in the world could beat my country in bureaucracy, |
| 0:56.9 | but I think Spain beats India hands down. |
| 1:01.0 | The figures, though, don't include asylum seekers, |
| 1:03.3 | as they must go through a separate procedure. |
| 1:06.4 | I will also speak to the Spanish Commission for Refugees |
| 1:09.2 | about the difficulties that asylum seekers face in getting accepted. |
| 1:13.7 | So the criteria is quite high, and I think that that's why in the percentage is a little bit low. |
| 1:22.5 | That's all coming up in today's Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:28.9 | Spain is above all a welcoming country, and this is the path we choose. Dignity, community and |
| 1:36.3 | justice. You've just heard the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, announcing that |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.