A step back to gain momentum. With the appointment of José Luis Escriva as Governor of the Bank of Spain, the government has confirmed the tactical move: his mandate as Minister of Digital Transformation and Civil Service (portfolio created for him since November 2023), after having been Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, in the first coalition executive (since January 2020), has always had the objective of accessing the banking supervisor, where he has developed part of his career. His political profile (although he does not have a PSOE card) and controversial, which so disturbs the Popular Party (PP), is perhaps one of the main values of this Albacete economist born in 1960 to try to open a new stage in the monetary institution of the bicentenary.
Escriva follows in the footsteps of Luis de Guindos (Minister of Economy in the PP government of Mariano Rajoy) and moves from the Council of Ministers to the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB), although in Guindos’ case he did so. to become vice-president of the organization, a position he currently holds. This body decides on the monetary policy of the entire eurozone: interest rates, interventions in debt markets… In it, the members of the executive committee, chaired by Christine Lagarde (also a former minister of France) and in which the governors of each The central banks of various partners of the eurozone have a political past in their respective countries. This is the case of Martin Kocher (Austria), Yannis Stournaras (Greece), Edward Scicluna (Malta), Mario Centeno (Portugal), Peter Kažimír (Slovakia) and Olli Rehn (Finland).
Both the Bank of Spain and the ECB are considered independent organizations, but experts agree that a good governor must combine being an expert with skills in politics, leadership and communication. Without a doubt, Escrivá’s program supports these characteristics. The new governor has already held different positions at the Bank of Spain, the ECB, BBVA and the Bank for International Settlements, in addition to chairing the Tax Authority (AIReF) from its creation (it was a PP appointment) until 2020, to later lead the pension reform of the Ministry of Social Security.
President Pedro Sánchez had already included him in the first coalition government for the same reasons. And last Monday, the Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, stressed in a television interview that the candidate, without revealing his identity, has experience and a curriculum vitae “more than adequate, in line and on a par with the previous governor, or even above if possible.
Without a doubt, the PSOE considers him a profile of European prestige and capable of opening a new era within the Bank of Spain. An institution with which, at the time of Pablo Hernández de Cos, the coalition Executive was very uncomfortable due to his diagnoses of conservative and neoliberal bias on all (or almost all) the progressive policies developed in recent years, such as the pernicious effects that he ensured that the increase in the minimum wage would have.
The Sánchez government’s preference for Escrivá’s candidacy takes on its full dimension if we consider that it has overcome the political “custom” of reaching an agreement with the main opposition party and the European Parliament’s recommendation to elevate more women to the forefront of central banks, who currently constitute a huge minority on the ECB’s governing council. There are only two: Lagarde and the German Isabel Schnabel, who is the main defender of orthodoxy on the European body’s executive committee.
Since the creation of the ECB, the monetary policy decided by the Bank of Spain was subordinate to the Eurosystem. Now, the national institution, in addition to participating in the board of directors of the European institution, fulfills a key mission in the supervision of financial entities and maintains an important muscle in its arm of analysis and evaluation of the economic situation and policies.
In recent years, the coalition government has been the subject of intense scrutiny by the Bank of Spain’s analysis department, headed by Hernández de Cos, who was the last appointment of the Rajoy government, in 2018. Since then, the Bank of Spain has reacted against the majority of reforms, some promoted by José Luis Escriva himself, such as pensions or the development of the Minimum Vital Income (IMV). “Lack of sophistication.” This is how the Minister of Social Security at the time described the Bank of Spain’s analysis of the public pension system in his 2021 annual report.
In its assessments and recommendations, some of the setbacks of the Bank of Spain have been highlighted, such as the aforementioned criticisms of the increase in the minimum interprofessional wage (SMI) in 2021 or the reluctance to tax the extraordinary profits of the banks when they have accumulated historical profits and they have distributed record dividends, favored by the monetary policy itself.
Escriva has his detractors. The main one, the PP, but there are others in other ideological spectrums. Among the most popular, it is particularly painful to find himself in the coalition government of Pedro Sánchez after being elected by them to preside over the AIReF. On the tax side, he has already rebelled and clashed with the then Minister of Finance, Cristóbal Montoro.
With his new position, Escrivá will benefit from an economic incentive that is not insignificant. It will triple his salary. Currently, he earns just under 80,000 euros gross per year as a minister. While former governor Pablo Hernández de Cos earned almost 240,000 euros.
The soon-to-be former minister has shown an ability to laugh at himself, particularly when, on the occasion of his change of portfolio, he published on social networks a video made by his team with his funniest anecdotes.
Escrivá is the son of traumatologist Joaquín Escrivá Reig, who was president of Albacete Balompié and in turn related to Carlos Belmonte, architect mayor of Albacete between 1956 and 1960, who gave his name to its football stadium, and Carmina Belmonte, who in 1991 She became the first Spanish woman to become mayor of a capital in an election.
