Spain will once again occupy the presidency of one of the great institutions of the European Union. After four months of intense and discreet consultations between the capitals, the Ministers of Economy of the Twenty-seven endorsed yesterday the candidacy of their Spanish colleague, Nadia Calviño, for the presidency of the European Investment Bank (EIB), which will become vacant on January 1, 2024. Founded in 1958, the EIB is the largest development bank in the world and is called upon to play a key role in financing the major energy projects that the EU plans to do in the coming years, as well as in the reconstruction of Ukraine.
"We are convinced that Nadia Calviño has all the necessary qualities to lead the largest multilateral bank in the world, channeling the necessary financing to companies, and supporting investment to boost competitiveness in Europe and sustainable development," announced Vincent van Peteghem, the Minister of Finance of Belgium, the country that holds the rotating presidency of the entity's board of governors and has taken care of the selection process.
After five years at the forefront of Spanish politics, a time in which he has piloted economic management during the pandemic and the blow that the war in Ukraine caused, Calviño, former director general of budgets of the European Commission, will thus return to home, community institutions. The vice president said she was "grateful and honored" to receive the support of her colleagues. His election "also reflects the respect, esteem and leadership that Spain has earned thanks to its hard and intense work in recent years", he celebrated after his appointment was announced, which will force Pedro Sánchez to reshape his new Government team.
Shortly after the elections of July 23, Sánchez decided to bet strongly on the presidency of the BEI - held for twelve years by the German Werner Hoyer - and presented the candidacy of the first vice-president and minister of the economy. There were already four candidates for the position and the race was then decided in favor of the Danish Margrethe Vestager, on leave as vice-president of the European Commission. The competition soon turned into a two-way duel in which neither the Spanish nor the Danish managed to fulfill the stipulated requirements: to obtain the support of at least 18 countries which, in turn, represent 68% of the bank's capital.
The possibility that Calviño and Vestager would block each other and this would lead to the emergence of a third consensus candidate could encourage the rest of the countries to keep their respective candidates (Daniele Franco for Italy, Teresa Czerwińska for Poland and Thomas Östros for Sweden ), which contributed to perpetuating the stagnation. Finally, on November 10, a few days after Sánchez was re-elected president, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced at a congress of European socialists in Malaga that his government was supporting Calviño.
This support was essential for the race to begin to clear up. France, however, has remained silent throughout the process and only in the final stretch, with the debates on the reform of the fiscal rules about to reach the finish line, did it express support for the candidate in Belgium southern, in front of the Danish, although she belongs, like Emmanuel Macron, to the liberal family. Last Friday, in the end, the Belgian minister wrote to his colleagues to propose that they support Nadia Calviño, since, according to his bilateral consultations, she was the candidate with the most support.
His conclusion, as La Vanguardia advanced on Wednesday, is that the Spaniard had gathered enough support to preside over the European Development Bank and this is what he conveyed yesterday to the European ministers, who endorsed the election of Calviño. The Spaniard's aura of winning after Berlin's support favored the support of other northern partners, who let Belgium know that, although they initially favored Vestager, they would also be satisfied with the Spaniard.
Italy expressed its dissatisfaction with the process followed by the Belgian delegation, which, although it warned the candidates that it would bet on Calviño, did not call their respective governments, and yesterday its minister addressed the issue during the working breakfast of the ministers It was a "reasonable" intervention, according to diplomatic sources. But while Vestager and Denmark took the defeat with sportsmanship, a certain bitterness can be detected in the words of the Italian minister, Giancarlo Giorgetti: "Calviño is an excellent candidate, but if Italy had had its own, Franco, in my position it is it's possible that it could have been played better", the representative of the Government of Giorgia Meloni told the press, implying that the Spaniard played with an advantage over her candidate, who was Minister of Economy with Mario Draghi.
Calviño's appointment will be discussed at the meeting of the EIB's board of directors on Wednesday and a process will be launched that will culminate in a decision by the board of governors, composed of EU finance ministers, which can be taken in writing. "We want to have a new president at the beginning of the year, there are three to four weeks left to complete the procedure", said Van Peteghem.
