First of all, this is because, in Spain, energy, and electricity in particular, account for a larger share of the consumption basket. While Spanish households devote 11.7% of their budget to energy, the euro area average is 10.9%. Regulatory and pricesetting mechanisms are another factor responsible for the notable unevenness across euro area countries in the pass-through to retail prices of the higher wholesale electricity price. For instance, in Spain around 40% of households opt for a dynamic pricing system, characterised by the high frequency of price revision, which explains the higher volatility of the electricity component of inflation and, thus, the faster and stronger pass-through. 8  The rising inflation is also having an uneven impact on households and firms. In particular, in recent months, lower-income households have experienced higher inflation because staple goods, whose prices have shown a greater relative increase in recent times, account for a larger share of these households’ spending. Consumer price inflation dynamics have gradually spread across the board since the summer of 2021. Thus, underlying inflation has risen rapidly, exceeding 4% in mid-2021 in the United States and 2% since end-2021 in the euro area. The underlying inflation rate has continued to increase and in April reached a level of 3.5% in the euro area (the highest in the history of the monetary union) and 3.4% in Spain (the highest since 2003). Additionally, according to the preliminary estimates available, underlying inflation in the euro area climbed to 3.8% in May.
As regards the solvency support measures for firms, according to Banco de España estimates, the funding approved could cover all the capital shortfalls of firms generated in 2020 as a result of the crisis. Nevertheless, the use of such funding so far is estimated to have contributed to reducing only a part of the SME solvency problems that arose as a result of the pandemic.16 This could owe to the fund allocation criteria not including any requirement relating to firms’ financial position, among other reasons. On the whole, the evidence available suggests that the public policy response has helped reduce the long-term consequences of the pandemic-induced crisis. Specifically, the measures implemented have managed to preserve most of the pre-pandemic employment and avoided an increase in the rate of firm closure. In particular, our latest Financial Stability Report highlights that, in the case of non-financial corporations, although the recovery in sales and the more moderate debt growth in 2021 have prompted an improvement in businesses’ financial situation, on average this continues to be more vulnerable than before the pandemic. For example, the average debt and debt burden ratios began to fall in 2021, and the percentage of firms with high debt decreased across the board, standing close to pre-pandemic levels in the moderately affected and largely unaffected sectors. In the severely affected sectors, however, it remained 7 pp higher than in 2019.