The Popular Party has proposed this Sunday the doctor in economics Fernando Fernández Méndez de Andés as a candidate to occupy the Council of the Bank of Spain, according to PP sources, after the resignation of the economist Antonio Cabrales last Tuesday, hours after being appointed to occupy the position without giving official explanations for his departure.
Fernando Fernández Méndez de Andés together with Judith Arnal, the PSOE candidate and former chief of staff of the Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño, will replace the directors Carmen Alonso (chosen by the PSOE), Fernando Eguidazu (appointed in his day by the PP) whose mandates as directors of the Bank of Spain ended at the beginning of this month.
Fernández Méndez has a technical profile of recognized prestige. International consultant on macroeconomic, regulatory and financial issues, he was chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.
In addition, he is a member of the Advisory Board of the Spanish Institute of Financial Advisors (IEAF) and of the Foundation for Financial Research (FEF), of the Bruegel Scientific Council in Brussels, and is currently director of the Euro Yearbook, edited by FEF and ICO Foundation.
He is also the author of academic and current affairs publications, has collaborated as an external expert for the European Court of Auditors and the European Parliament and was a member of the Committee of Experts for the Reform of the Spanish Tax System. He has also been rector of the University of Nebrija and the European University of Madrid and a director of Red Eléctrica Corporación and was a director of the former Bankia.
Cabrales' resignation occurred when it was leaked that he had signed a document in April 2018 in support of Clara Ponsatí, MEP and former Minister of Education of the Generalitat, who at that time had moved to Scotland to teach at the University of Saint Andrews where she was a professor.
A fact that the Popular Party itself was unaware of but which, once published, considered that it curtailed the independence required by a director of the Spanish financial regulator and it was Cuca Gamarra herself, who invited the economist to resign, despite the fact that his appointment was already printed in the Official State Gazette of last Wednesday.s
