Spain maintains 13th place in the world ranking of the 2026 edition of the Elcano Global Presence Index, nestled between Italy and Australia, with a total score of 312.1 points, according to data released this Wednesday by the Elcano Royal Institute.
Despite registering an advance that the report describes as "very modest" --+0.5 points--, Spain is among the few European Union partners in 2025 that have not seen the value of their external projection diminished in the last year, as the Elcano Royal Institute pointed out this Thursday in a press release collected by Europa Press.
Thus, the Spanish evolution contrasts with that of other major economies in the community bloc such as Germany and the Netherlands, which have suffered significant declines, or France and Italy, whose retreats have been more contained. This relative solidity is explained because improvements in variables such as Tourism, Sports, and Information have managed to compensate for the falls in Manufacturing and Culture.
In a long-term view --1990-2025--, the study finds that Spain has settled in the group of countries that have continuously increased their global presence, with an accumulated increase of 157.9 points in absolute terms in the last three and a half decades. The document frames this advance within the same trend followed by other European and Asian economies that have gained weight, although still far from the strong increases led by China and the United States.
The analysis also highlights that this strengthening of the Spanish position occurs in a scenario of "loss of presence" of the European Union, which in 2025 has been overtaken for the first time in the entire historical series by the global presence of the United States. In parallel, the Elcano Royal Institute, through its Corporate Governance structure -- which integrates its Board of Trustees and Commissions --, continuously monitors Spain's influence and image, considered a priority axis of its research agenda.
Period of uncertainty and new global order
In view of the report's conclusions, the principal investigator and coordinator of the Elcano Global Presence Index project, Manuel Gracia, has warned of the opening of a "period of uncertainty in which the rules, the protagonists, and, ultimately, the future of globalization will be redefined".
Along these lines, he pointed out that it is not yet clear "if the world is already in a "new order" or if it is still in "that chiaroscuro where monsters emerge."
Gracia added that the results show "certain inconsistency" in US President Donald Trump's 'MAGA' discourse, since rather than a decline in the relevance of the United States, the study highlights the "consecration of China," a country of 1.500 million inhabitants --more than 17% of the world-- which has experienced "the greatest development since 1990," he stressed.