The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, tries to empathize with the businessmen, but so far he has not succeeded. Except for Catalonia, there are great misgivings not only towards his policies but also towards him as a person. To a large extent this is due to the lack of trust between what he says and what he then does. As a big Ibex businessman comments privately, “he calls us so we can tell him what we think. In reality, we tell him what he wants to hear and he tells us what we want to hear and in the end everything remains the same.”
The example used was what happened at the Davos meeting. After the good words given by the president to the businessmen, almost in parallel, the third vice president, Teresa Ribera, charged with all the cavalry against the CEO of Repsol, Josu Jon Imaz, for questioning in a “subtle, demagogic and populist” way ” the energy transition, as he said. She accused him of being a “denialist,” when the executive had limited himself to saying that “decarbonizing is not electrifying.”
One more insult to the corollary of disqualifications that the progressive Government has been carrying out with proper names to businessmen. From the president of Mercadona, Juan Roig, or that of Inditex, Amancio Ortega, to that of Ferrovial, Rafael del Pino.
Nor does the second vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, help rebuild relations with entrepreneurs with her witticisms. In her desire to favor the unions, on which she has relied to launch her political project, she has become the scourge of the businessmen. This has placed social dialogue on the brink of failure.
As for the first vice president and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, the businessmen confess privately that “she is obsessed with increasing revenue to face the sharp increase in spending, which has led to unsustainable debt. And this is intended to be fixed by raising taxes and not favoring the productive economy.”
It is as if the Executive had forgotten the popular assertion “you get more with a spoonful of honey than with a jug of honey.” At a time of economic weakening, creating a climate of understanding and trust is essential to face the reforms required by the challenges of digitalization and the energy transition.
The Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, is trying to mend relations with the financial world. The problem is that the bankers see him as the weakest Economy Minister in democracy, who “neither pushes nor cuts” compared to the three vice presidents, who are the ones who really rule. Perhaps the exception that confirms the rule is that of the Minister of Industry, Jordi Hereu, who proposes a pact for reindustrialization because he understands that without trust and loyalty between the central and regional powers it is impossible to rebuild the business fabric.
