The Círculo de Empresarios, together with the Association of Economic Information Journalists (APIE), has published the results of its Círculo 2025 Business Survey, a study that assesses the perceptions of nearly 400 Spanish business leaders on the economic situation and its prospects, as well as the effects of current economic policy on competitiveness and business decisions.
The survey was presented by Juan María Nin, president of the Círculo de Empresarios, and Miguel Iraburu, president of the working group that prepared the survey. According to the survey results, Spanish companies continue to perceive a general deterioration in the business environment and national competitiveness.
For these companies, there has been a worsening of key factors such as excessive government intervention in business activities (91.6%), lack of transparency in public decisions (89.4%), deterioration in institutional quality (85.9%) and legal uncertainty (84.1%). In addition, low productivity and geopolitical uncertainty remain the main challenges for the Spanish economy.
Despite this, more than two-thirds of those surveyed expect their sector to remain stable or improve in 2025 and 2026. In fact, almost 50% of those surveyed expect an improvement in their turnover, although less than 20% anticipate an increase in their margins.
The main obstacles faced by entrepreneurs are labour costs (50.6%) and bureaucratic burdens (48.3%), with the regulatory and bureaucratic environment being the main brake on growth for approximately 74% of companies. Other issues of concern to respondents include absenteeism, taxation and political uncertainty.
Attracting and retaining talent and controlling costs are the management priorities for 2025, along with innovation in products and services and digital transformation. In fact, more than half of companies plan to increase investment in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and digitalisation.
With regard to artificial intelligence, more than 90% of companies believe that it improves work efficiency, while 50% believe that it helps to diversify markets and products/services and increases margins. Currently, its use is concentrated in consultation and information search activities, data analysis and processing, and the production of documents and audiovisual content.
Economic policy priorities
Companies are urgently calling for structural reforms in taxation, administrative simplification and European fund management. Economic policy priorities include adjusting public accounts by containing spending, a fiscal framework that boosts activity and reducing the regulatory burden.
With regard to the analysis of public spending in Spain, the survey results reflect a high degree of scepticism: more than 90% consider that public spending management in Spain is not efficient. To reverse this situation, companies point to two key priorities for improving the efficiency of public administration: simplification and greater bureaucratic agility (75%) and strengthening the evaluation of the efficiency of spending and public policies (60%).
On the subject of taxation, almost 80% reiterate that the current tax burden is detrimental to competitiveness. Respondents call for specific tax reforms focused on improving competitiveness, highlighting tax incentives for investment (72%) and the reduction of social security contributions paid by companies (65%) as the main priorities.
With regard to education, the promotion of vocational training and dual training is highly valued. In terms of innovation, entrepreneurs are in favour of greater university-business collaboration in research and the promotion of applied research with public-private funding and collaboration projects.
Finally, they consider that the experience with the Next Generation EU Funds continues to be poor: 75% of those surveyed describe their management as bad/very bad and more than 60% of companies have not applied for European funds, either because their sector is not included in the leverage policies or because of the complexity of the administrative procedures. The main uses of the funds, if obtained, are to improve the level of digitalisation of companies and to start or boost R&D&I.
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