Pedro Sánchez’s decision to appoint the Minister of Digital Transformation and Civil Service, José Luis Escriva, as the new governor of the Bank of Spain, has met with a “no” from the Popular Party. Those of Alberto Núñez Feijóo argue their rejection because he is a member of the current Council of Ministers. However, the transfer of policy to national banks is a common practice in Europe.
The European Central Bank (ECB) has a board of six members, half of whom come from the political world. This is the case of the president herself, Christine Lagarde, who has held this position since 2019, coming from the management of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where she arrived as Minister of Finance. In France, she held several economic portfolios during the mandates of the conservatives Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.
The Spaniard Luis de Guindos became vice-president of the monetary institution recently, leaving the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness. In the case of the Italian Piero Cipollone, he joined the party in 2023. A few years earlier, he had been economic advisor to the prime minister.
The same thing happens with the Governing Council of the ECB, a very masculine body in which only two women sit: Lagarde herself and the German Isabel Schnabel, who is a member of the board of directors. There are no women among the 19 national governors (there should be 20 in the eurozone, but Spain’s is vacant since the expiration of Pablo Hernández de Cos’ mandate).
Five of the governors were elected while they were still part of the national government, as would be the case with Escrivá, or as soon as they left it. The closest example is that of the Portuguese Mário Centeno, who held the Finance portfolio between 2015 and 2020. Since this year, he has been governor. Yannis Stournaras has been governor of the Bank of Greece since 2014. He was Minister of Finance between 2012 and 2014. The Maltese Edward Scicluna, governor since 2021, was Minister of Finance between 2013 and 2020. In his case, he is also a member of the governing Labour Party and was previously an MEP.
This is not just a practice in the Global South. Olli Rehn from Finland has been the governor since 2018. Two years ago, he was Minister of Finance and previously European Commissioner, a position that governments also appoint. The governor of the Bank of Slovakia since 2019, Peter Kažimír, took over the post of the Finance Ministry, which he had held since 2012 as a member of the populist SMER party.
Another handful of economists who have held political positions in the past also sit on the Governing Council, which is responsible, among other things, for setting the eurozone’s monetary policy – such as raising or lowering interest rates.
Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel was an adviser to the SPD, the party to which he is affiliated, although his orthodox view of the economy won him the approval of the liberal finance minister, Christian Lindner, according to the newspaper. Financial Time. Nagel succeeded Jens Weidman, Mario Draghi’s arch-enemy during the financial crisis due to his expansionist policies. The German was appointed in 2011, coming directly from the head of the department of economics and fiscal policy in Angela Merkel’s chancellery.
This is what appears in the CV of the Cypriot Chris Patsalides, who was special adviser to the president for economic affairs between March and April 2024, when he was appointed governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus. Other governors – such as the Belgian, Estonian, French, Dutch or Slovenian – were also advisers to the government, although some time before being appointed to this position.
“What is relevant is whether or not the person proposed for the position of governor of the Bank of Spain meets the requirements and qualifications that a position with these characteristics deserves, especially in a context of so much economic and geopolitical uncertainty,” he defended. Pedro Sánchez at a press conference after the NATO summit in Washington in which he congratulated the minister. “With his CV, I believe that there are few people in Spain who have the knowledge of monetary policy that José Luis Escriva has,” he said. However, the president referred to the negotiations with the PP for the renewal of several state institutions, according to the EFE Agency.
