In times of tension between the Government and the CEOE, the socialist area of the executive wanted to start the legislature with messages pleasant to the ears of the employers. In the transfer of portfolios, both the veteran first vice president and Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño, and the newly arrived Jordi Hereu, Minister of Industry, insisted that a good business climate and the promotion of entrepreneurship are priorities for their departments.
“The promotion of entrepreneurship, business growth, the modernization of SMEs and the improvement of the business climate is a priority,” said Calviño, in a transfer of portfolios in which the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, was present. Although he arrived somewhat late to the event, he shared the final photo with the ministers. Furthermore, the vice president insisted that “companies and SMEs are the heart of our economy.” Calviño also pointed out the new name of his ministry, which adds the “company” replacing the previous “digital transformation”, which becomes independent to remain under the orders of José Luis Escrivá.
The CEOE spoke out drastically last week against the agreements reached to make the investiture of Pedro Sánchez possible, warning that a complicated business climate was created in which economic growth would be very difficult. A harsh statement, although it avoided mentioning the word amnesty, a concession to achieve the support of Foment del Treball.
If, as planned, the economic year starts with the rise of the SMI in January and the first steps to reduce the working day, the opposition of the CEOE is guaranteed, although the Government will try to channel the discrepancy through social dialogue. Another element that Calviño highlighted are the advantages that the incorporation of trade powers into his ministry can provide, which “will allow for better articulation of the policy of attracting strategic investments.”
For his part, the PSC's man in the Government, Jordi Hereu, made his debut in the Ministry of Industry with a movement that the automobile industry in particular demanded, such as the creation of the Secretary of State for Industry, a reaffirmation of its faith. in the productive economy, and a memory of the city of which he was mayor. “I believe the productive economy, the industry that helped build Barcelona, is something wonderful, and it has to be in the future,” said Hereu, who insisted that “when you are here, you govern for everyone and among everyone, “It serves all the social and economic agents of the country.”
He also did not lack a memory for Ernest Lluch, murdered exactly 23 years ago yesterday, when Hereu was a young councilor of the Les Corts district, in Barcelona. Un Lluch, who recalled, had studied the impact of the industry on the transformation of the territory in both Valencia and Catalonia.
On the other hand, Isabel Rodríguez made her debut as head of the Ministry of Housing with controversy, stating that they will defend small property owners. “Peace of mind, because this Government is taking to the streets and we are aware that, in Spain, many people, especially the elderly, dedicated all their efforts, all their savings, to the purchase of a second home that today complements their income.” Her criticism came from the left. The spokesperson for Más País, Íñigo Errejón, stated that this “is continuing to feed the rentier social bloc that then harasses any attempt to advance rights.”
The emotionality of the farewells and welcomes, in the successive acts of portfolio transfers between outgoing and incoming ministers, was also torpedoed by the resounding slam of the door that Podemos slammed upon leaving the Government.
Irene Montero, already former Minister of Equality, handed her portfolio to the socialist Ana Redondo with a verbal missile against the president: “Pedro Sánchez throws us out of this Government and thereby breaks the unity of a democratic bloc in which we all need each other. and all of them,” he denounced. “But hope is even stronger than before, because we already know that it is possible,” she insisted, with the usual rhetoric of the purple formation.
Montero addressed his successor, after the harsh controversy over the application of the law of only yes means yes, Podemos's star initiative that led to the reduction of sentences for a thousand sexual offenders. “I wish you to never be left alone and to have the courage to make the 40- and 50-year-old male friends of the President of the Government uncomfortable,” Montero told her.
This is also what Ione Belarra spoke about when saying goodbye to the Social Rights portfolio. “Today is a difficult day because they have achieved what they did not achieve in 2019, which is to throw Podemos out of the Government, which is not only unfair, but a huge political mistake,” he denounced. Some words of bitter farewell that contrasted with the warning that Pilar Llop issued when handing over the Justice portfolio to Félix Bolaños: “You have to know how to be in places, but, above all, you have to know how to leave places.”
Bolaños, who adds the Justice portfolio to that of the Presidency and Relations with the Cortes and who will have to manage the future amnesty law, defended that “seeking democratic coexistence is a constitutional mandate.” And, in the face of the right-wing offensive, he pledged his “absolute respect for the law, the Constitution and the rule of law.” “Everything I have to do I will do it with dialogue, but I will do it all,” he warned regarding the investiture pacts with Junts or ERC. “I will dialogue with whoever is necessary, for as long as necessary, to try to build bridges so that we can reach agreements that are beneficial for everyone,” he assured. And he assumed his new responsibilities before “a legislature that will undoubtedly be marked by the search for democratic coexistence in our country, especially in those territories where there was a more pronounced fracture,” he stressed, in reference to Catalonia.
The new Minister of Justice also called on the PP to urgently renew the CGPJ: “It is not an option, it is an obligation.”
