Carlos Body, Minister of Economy, said the Bank of Spain is there to advise the governmentwithout supervising or attacking it, so as to limit all the work of the governor of the Bank of Spain to that of a competent advisor.
It is true that the reports of the Bank of Spain serve to advise the government.but in the strict sense of the council: it proposes measures, details the impacts and risk alerts so that the Government can take them into account. In other words, it describes what reality is.
It is therefore not a government advisor who develops arguments to defend the positions of the Government, its measures and its policy, but rather advises from a technical and independent point of view. The latter is essential for it to be able to carry out its work: independence.
The Body should not, therefore, confuse technical advice, which may not coincide with the government’s action, with an attack. The Bank of Spain prepares its reports from an independent and orthodox point of view, which the government may or may not follow. Now, if the government follows another path, it is not that the Bank of Spain is attacking it, but that the old national central bank prepares its reports, makes its estimates and issues its warnings and conclusions from a technical point of view, which the government, voluntarily, decides to ignore.
So it is not that the Bank of Spain attacked the government in the previous stage, but that the latter ignored its reports. What the government is asking you indirectly, through Corp’s statements, is to support its policies, and the Bank of Spain cannot do so if the technical analysis indicates another result.
This independence is therefore essential. It is from the point of view of monetary policy, even if now it is only as part of the ECB, and it is from the point of view of the analyses carried out by the entity.
It is therefore serious that the appointed governor was José Luis Escriva, not because of a lack of knowledge or skills, which he possesses, but because the The political has eaten the technical and the risk that the Bank of Spain loses its independence and acts as a transmission belt for the government, as a political advisor and not as the independent technical advisor that it should be, compromises the entire economy..
After the mandate of Pablo Hernández de Cos, whom the government seems to appreciate little, being independent and a true technical advisor, the Bank of Spain has regained a lot of prestige, with impeccable management and an enormous knowledge of skills, which has made it highly valued among the old national central banks of the eurozone, with an independent and high-level research service, which must not lose its professionalism or independence.
This is what is at stake today, with the political profile of the governor, who cannot be just another minister on the street of Alcalá; he cannot be that political advisor that the government seems to want to seek so that the Bank of Spain loses its independence, which would take away its prestige.
