Today in Spain: A roundup of the latest news on Thursday

40 percent of foreign tourists in Spain in March stayed in the Canaries

In March 2025 the Canary Islands accounted for 39.1 percent of overnight hotels stays in the whole of Spain by foreign visitors, and Tenerife, with 2.1 million, was the tourist area in the country with the highest number of stays.

That's a huge proportion for a group of small islands with only 2+ million people compared to Spain's 49 million total population.

Furthermore, the Canary Islands had the highest occupancy rate per bed during March (74.9 percent), which reached 79 percent in the south of Gran Canaria, although the tourist spot with the highest occupancy rate was Teguise, in Lanzarote (85.2 percent).

This comes at a time when locals in the Atlantic archipelago are seriously questioning the consequences of overtourism on their islands’ housing market, ecosystem, resources and more.

Spain to reinforce surrogacy ban

Spain’s Ministry of Equality is confident that it will be able to strengthen the ban on surrogacy in Spain within the next month.

According to the Minister of Equality, Ana Redondo , her department is working with the Ministry of Justice to find a solution to the current legal loopholes, ensuring the prohibition of this assisted reproduction technique, whereby a person or couple hires a woman to become pregnant and relinquish the child in their favour.

Surrogacy is a practice that is "radically prohibited" in Spain, but in many cases the registration of children conceived through surrogacy in third countries is permitted, citing the best interests of the child.

Mercury to hit 30C in southern Spain

After an Easter break with very changeable weather that’s continued throughout the start of this week, the first period of high temperatures is upon us.

On Thursday, southern cities such as Seville, Jaén, Granada, Badajoz and Murcia could see the mercury rise up to 30C, while most of the rest of the country will also busk in good weather and higher temperatures.

Spain to go ahead with contested Israeli arms deal

Spain's interior ministry on Wednesday said a politically embarrassing multi-million-dollar arms purchase from an Israeli company would go ahead after state legal services advised against its attempt to scrap the contract.

Spain's Socialist-led minority government halted weapons transactions with Israel after the outbreak of the war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and which has devastated the Palestinian territory.

In October last year, the interior ministry said it had launched the process to terminate a deal with an Israeli firm that would have supplied bullets for the Civil Guard.

Ministry sources told AFP on Wednesday that the move had been abandoned following a recommendation by the state legal services "that advised against the cancellation due to the advanced stage of the processing of the contract".

"The cancellation would have meant paying the company without receiving the equipment," the sources added.

According to details of the tender made public, Israeli firm IMI Systems Ltd, represented by Guardian Homeland Security, secured the deal worth €6.8 million ($7.8 million).

The far-left Sumar party, the junior partner in the ruling coalition, said the reversal was "a blatant violation" of the government's pledge not to trade weapons with Israel.