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The US non-profit NGO Fund for Peace has published its annual Fragile States Index (formerly the Failed States Index) which last year saw Spain come second on the list of most-worsened countries.

The report analyses 178 countries, with Finland at number 178 since 2013. Last year, South Sudan was 1st; this year it's 3rd, overtaken by Yemen and Somalia. In 2018, Spain dropped from 155th to 149th, putting it between Poland and Chile. The totals are based on the sum of scores from 0 to 10 assigned to each country in each of 12 categories, where 0 is most stable and 10 is most fragile.

This fall last year was sparked by a four-point increase in "State Legitimacy", from 2.8 to 6.8. That score has worsened another 0.1 this year, putting Spain on the same level as Sri Lanka, Honduras and Malaysia. Spain is given the same rating, 6.9, for "Factionised Elites".

Today, despite having slightly improved its overall score, Spain has dropped another two positions to 147, between Estonia and Slovakia. It's seen the greatest decline this year in "Security Apparatus" and "External Intervention". Among the factors that have improved the most are "Economy", "Factionalised Elites", "Human Rights" and "Demographic Pressures".