Two new details are now known about the decision of the First Vice-President and Minister of Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño, to run for the presidency of the European Investment Bank (EIB): it was adopted with Pedro Sánchez and in a moment after the July 23 elections. From here, questions persist about Sánchez’s future government and conjecture surrounding the decision. From the Executive they insist on the need to present a candidate with the “maximum options” to preside over a “strategic” institution. The PP, on the other hand, say that it is an indication that Sánchez does not have “enough support for the investiture” and is already thinking of “relocating his ministers”.
In the middle of this intersection of interpretations is Calviño herself, who yesterday broke the informational stupor of the August bridge to offer from Cadiz the reasons for the decision. “In the face of the scope of the competitors, President Sánchez and myself clearly saw in our informal contacts after the elections that only a candidacy with my name had the best chance of succeeding and that any other candidate would be giving the battle for lost”, he assured.
The “informal contacts” took place after a campaign in which Calviño, who is not a member of the PSOE, went to all of them, despite the fact that he was not on any electoral list. Her profile is that of a solvent manager with international projection and no differences, at least with the socialist part of the Government.
Yesterday he said that presiding over the EIB would be an “honour”, since it is an institution “totally strategic for Spain and Europe” that will have “a fundamental role” in the “financing” of future green infrastructures and in the ” reindustrialization” of the European Union.
Along with the importance of the EIB, he alluded to the “scope of competitors” for the presidency of the European bank to justify such a high-level candidacy. He was referring above all to the European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, and to Daniele Franco, Italian Minister of Economy under Mario Draghi. The Polish vice-president, Teresa Czerwinska, and the Swedish vice-president, Thomas Östros, are also running for office.
Another argument is that neither Spain nor a woman has ever chaired the EIB, in whose governing body the country shares a rotating chair with Portugal. The nominations will be validated next Thursday and the name of the winner will be known at the informal meeting of the Council of Ministers of Economy and Finance (Ecofin) in Santiago de Compostela on September 15 and 16.
Calviño assured that the process “does not interfere at all” with his current functions, which he will continue to exercise, in the confidence that Sánchez forms a government, until December 31, the date on which the mandate of the current president of the BEI expires, Werner Hoyer, and his replacement will take over.
“The president has clearly expressed his confidence in me and I my commitment to him to continue leading and directing the Government’s economic policy in the coming months and during the next legislature”, he said.
The takeover at the EIB will inaugurate the remodeling of the European institutions next year. There are elections to the European Parliament and a new European Commission must be elected.
The general coordinator of the PP, Elías Bendodo, described yesterday as a “democratic anomaly” that Sánchez has not contacted Alberto Núñez Feijóo to inform him of the candidacy.
