The US and Israeli attacks on Iran are already impacting people's wallets. The situation will worsen the longer the conflict lasts and the longer it takes to resolve the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil and gas passes. "Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow, but we do know that the risk is very high," says Javier Díaz-Giménez, a professor at IESE Business School. The problem is that we are in a context of uncertainty and volatility, adds Pedro Aznar, an economics professor at ESADE Business School.

Lower electricity and fuel prices halted the upward trend in the cost of living in Catalonia in March. Thus, prices for consumer goods and services for families remained flat on average between February and March, according to data from the Consumer Price Index (CPI) published this Friday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

"The rise in prices can sweep you and us away", ERC spokesman in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, warned Spanish president Pedro Sánchez, who has been the object of attacks by the opposition over the little effect the executive's measures to curb inflation have had. Faced with this reality, Sánchez has advanced one of the measures the Spanish government will approve on Saturday in an extraordinary cabinet meeting: VAT on electricity will be lowered from 10% to 5%. Previously it had already been lowered from 21% to 10%, but the bill has continued to rise, while waiting for the gas price cap to take effect.

The bill that citizens living in Spain pay to plug in any appliance or turn on a light at home has already become a political issue that runs the risk of shifting the focus from the underlying problem: Spain has been, for some time, one of the EU countries with the most expensive electricity. This summer prices have escalated across the continent and are expected to continue to do so, but in the State a set of factors have combined to further damage its citizens's pockets every time. There is no single cause to explain it, nor is there a simple, single solution to solve it

The cost of energy, in particular the increase in the price of electricity and the high cost of fuel, has maintained this month the upward trend in the prices of consumer goods and services in Spain, according to advanced data from the consumer price index (CPI) published on Tuesday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).