The governor of the Bank of Spain, Pablo Hernández de Cos, said yesterday at an economic seminar in Santander that there is already an implicit income pact in Spain. "Real wages are falling and corporate margins have been performing moderately in recent months," he noted. In any case, he considered that, in his opinion, the pact should be formalized in an agreement with salary increases below real inflation and that "also moderate business margins" to "anchor this path in the future."
Asked about the criticism received in recent weeks, after claiming that the pensions and salaries of officials were included in this pact and not updated according to the CPI, De Cos declined to make "a comment on other comments that other people make in the media Communication". The governor claimed "rigor and independence" as "the two pillars" on which he tries to base his mandate and recalled that "the entire political spectrum" in Congress praised the work of the Bank of Spain in his last appearance to present his annual report.
Regarding the new measures that the Government plans to approve this Saturday in the Council of Ministers in the new decree against the economic consequences of the war in Ukraine, the governor stated that the position of the Bank of Spain in this crisis is that fiscal policy must play a different role from the one it played during the pandemic, given that the fiscal margin is now smaller and that an inflationary episode is taking place “to which fiscal policy should contribute”. "Fiscal measures must be focused on the most vulnerable and be temporary so as not to damage the structural deficit."
On the other hand, Cos, who again asked the banks for prudent behavior, warned that a new increase in the price of housing in Spain in 2022 could lead to an overvaluation and called for close monitoring of the trend in the coming quarters. . Housing prices in Spain grew by 8.5% in the first three months of 2022.
The indicators of imbalances in housing market prices have been showing “some slight signs” of overvaluation since the beginning of 2020. “These indicators have increased slightly in 2021 and could be further boosted if the acceleration in housing prices consolidates. housing observed in the first quarter of 2022”.
