After criticizing for several days the appointment of José Luis Escriva as governor of the Bank of Spain, the PP has changed its objective in favor of his replacement at the head of the Ministry of Digital Transformation and Civil Service, the socialist Óscar López.
Sources from the PP leadership expressed their “satisfaction” this Wednesday at the “fact that the new Minister for Digital Transformation at least not immediate family of the President of the Government.” “This is the only barrier that Pedro Sánchez has not crossed for the moment,” they say ironically.
In Genoa, there is no confidence in Escrivá’s independence as head of the banking watchdog, the argument being that he went “overnight” from a seat in the Council of Ministers to the head of a body that should be subject to conditions of independence and neutrality. Mainly for his work in assessing monetary policy.
Escrivá’s vacant seat will be filled by Óscar López, a deputy who until now was chief of staff of the President of the Government. The history of friendship between the two men goes back many years, at the beginning of the century, when both were party scholarship holders under the sponsorship of Jose Blancowho was then minister and organizational secretary of the PSOE.
“We understand that he needs a government of praetorians that takes into account his internal precariousness. For this reason, he has chosen someone who shares with him an intellectual and ethical reference within the PSOE: José Blanco. Everyone has learned from Zapatero, who continues to be Sánchez’s main guru,” says the PP.
In this context, from Genoa, they assure that they “appreciate the predictive capacity of Oscar Lopez”, because “he said years ago that Pedro Sanchez”would lead us to disaster“and he was not wrong.” They thus stressed that “his abilities are therefore inversely proportional to those of the president of the IEC.”
“The new minister has a hard time being the most impertinent Oscar in the Council of Ministers, as well as the most insolvent López of the PSOE spokesmen in the Congress of Deputies,” concludes the PP, referring to the minister Óscar Puente and the spokesperson Patxi López.
The succession
Escrivá had known for months that he would be governor of the Bank of Spain, replacing Pablo Hernandez de Cos. Actually, Pedro Sanchez Not only did he discuss it with him at that time, but in November 2023 he designed his role within the government to facilitate his replacement and transition to banking supervisor.
To proceed with the appointment, Moncloa had to contact the PP, since the choice of the governor is the exclusive power of the president of the government, but there is always an agreement with the opposition so that it appoints the vice-governor. This is how it has always been done.
But on this occasion, this was not done until the General Council of the Judiciary gave its approval last June. The Government informed the PP that its only candidate was Escrivá.
Regarding the conversations that led to the appointment, popular sources assure that in fact, they thought it was a negotiating trick to then reach a consensus on another name less “engaged”. It wasn’t like that.
