The Government yesterday put an end to the uncertainty and the speculations at the Bank of Spain, to corroborate what this newspaper had already announced, that the post of deputy governor was going to be for a woman. There were three final candidates, but the one who took the “prize” was Soledad Núñez, who was director general of Economic Policy of the Economic Office of the Presidency of the Government and former director general of the Treasury under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The new governor, José Luis Escrivá, is complying with the pre-established script and has given the green light to the appointment of Núñez sponsored by the Government. Despite the fact that the prerogative of the appointment of deputy governor “comes directly from the governor”, sources consulted by LA RAZÓN have confirmed that the candidate was decided in Moncloa.
The economist, who is close to the PSOE, already tried to access the second position in the banking supervisory hierarchy in 2012, during the mandate of Luis María Linde, but did not succeed due to the veto of the Popular Party, which argued that she was too close to the PSOE in politics. The position finally went to Fernando Restoy, at that time vice-president of the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV).
PP sources have recalled that Núñez held senior positions of responsibility for seven years in socialist governments and that “her ideological affinity has been given priority in the appointment over her professional merits. As well as being Zapatero’s economic guru, she was a director of Banco Madrid until its bankruptcy in 2015. Two different economic bankruptcies in the same CV. Being Zapatero’s economic guru should be grounds for disqualification, not promotion.” In this sense, the PP criticised the fact that “the advisor who made her political debut with the government of the ‘green shoots’ before an unprecedented crisis in our country is now being promoted by the government of the economy that is on the rise.”
The Government has also made effective the replacements of two of the members of the Board of the banking institution, also linked to the orbit of the Executive presided by Pedro Sánchez. Thus, it has incorporated Lucía Rodríguez, a civil servant of the Higher Corps of Commercial Technicians and State Economists and former advisor in the cabinet of the former Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño. Graduated in Law and Business Administration, she has been until now Deputy Director General of Public Debt at the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF), responsible for analyzing the sustainability of public finances and monitoring the European fiscal framework, among other positions.
Jordi Pons, professor of Economics at the University of Barcelona, will join the institution to comply with the “Catalan independence quota” in the monetary supervisory body. This decision was agreed by Pedro Sánchez himself with the former president of the Generalitat of ERC, Pere Aragonés, during his visit to Catalonia last July. Pons is known as an economist of the alleged “fiscal plunder of Catalonia”. In 2005, together with Ramón Tremosa, former deputy and former councillor of Junts, he signed “Fiscal plunder, a premeditated suffocation”, in which he denounced the alleged problems generated for the Catalan region by its net contribution to solidarity between regions.