The Bank of Spain has been about to be a new clash territory between the Government of Pedro Sánchez and the main opposition force, the PP of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. Finally, the situation seems to have been redressed to a large extent and there is the possibility that the appointment of the new members of the entity's governing council who are ending their mandate will be closed with an agreement between both forces. The so-called Catalan quota remains pending.
The appointments of directors of the Bank of Spain are approved by the Council of Ministers at the proposal of the person in charge of the Ministry of Economy, in this case the first vice president, Nadia Calviño. The two council members who reach the end of the period for which they were elected are Fernando Eguidazu, proposed by the PP, and Carmen Alonso, by the PSOE. In the first case, there would be the possibility that he could access a second term of six years, the maximum limit provided by law. But Calviño did not contemplate that possibility from the beginning, according to the sources consulted, and her initial approach was to replace the two directors with people she trusted, including her chief of staff until a month ago, Judith Arnal. . Plan finally abandoned.
The Board of the Bank of Spain is made up of – in addition to the Governor, Pablo Hernández de Cos; the deputy governor, Margarita Delgado, and two ex officio members: the Secretary of State for the Treasury and the vice-president of the CNMV– by six other directors who are appointed by the Executive. Traditionally, three of them were proposed by the current government, another two by the opposition and the last one agreed with the Government of the Generalitat, taking into account their economic and political weight. Hence the name of Catalan quota. The current representative is Núria Mas, an IESE professor who took office during the term of Luis de Guindos as Minister of Economy under Mariano Rajoy, in 2017.
Since he has held the Economy portfolio, Calviño has not renewed directors whose term expired, although there was still room for a second, which has modified that traditional balance towards a majority of the current PSOE government, four, against one of the PP, plus the Catalan representative. This change was partly offset by the fact that the popular councilor, the aforementioned Eguidazu, was part of the executive commission, a more restricted body, with six members, which meets weekly compared to the council's monthly cadence. The last appointment was that of the Majorcan Carles Manera, from the socialist party of the islands, replacing the popular Rafael Castejón.
As has already been said, Calviño's initial intention was to replace the two current vacancies with people close to him, which would leave the PP without any representative either on the executive or on the council. A situation that set off alarm bells at the top of the Bank of Spain, fearful that the exclusion of the PP would leave the entity exposed to attacks from the opposition, as it did not have any representation in it.
There is no doubt that Governor Hernández de Cos cannot be charged with condescension towards the coalition government of Pedro Sánchez. Since the pension reform promoted by José Luis Escrivá, the Minister of Social Security, the bank tax, De Cos, has often expressed his divergences with the measures of the Executive. At the start of the pandemic and with the arrival of the confinement, in 2020, the governor held a tense duel with Calviño over the measures to help the economy, demanding more ambition in the volumes and public guarantees for public loans to companies , compared to the less committed attitude of the person in charge of Economy.
Without a doubt, it is unlikely that the current position of the governor will be modified or altered by the changes in the council of the entity, but the sources consulted insist that in the Bank of Spain they consider a balance in the representation of political forces necessary.
Finally, Calviño has proposed to the leadership of the PP that they propose a person from their orbit for the council, while the other will be from the socialist space. The sources consulted believe that the popular will take the step and will not consider rejecting the agreement.
It remains to be determined what will happen with the mandate of Núria Mas, which expires next March. She is an economist specialized in the health field, like her predecessor in the same position, Guillem López Casasnovas from Menorca, who in this case did exhaust both terms of six years each. At the time of the election of Mas, with Guindos, who had chaired Lehman Brothers in Spain, where Mas worked for two years, the head of the Department of Economy in the Generalitat was Oriol Junqueras. The ERC leader and the current vice president of the European Central Bank (ECB) maintained intense contacts.
Calviño has not informed Mas of his intentions, renew his mandate or propose a new director. The Government of Pere Aragonès, for its part, has also gotten down to work and has several scenarios open based on the discussions with Calviño. Neither of the two administrations has wanted to reveal their intentions and they have refused to explain the contacts between them.
All the sources consulted agree that in the current political context, budgetary pacts in Madrid and Barcelona hand in hand with the reciprocal hand of Socialists and Republicans, it would be illogical for the aforementioned Catalan quota not to be maintained.
