The Popular Party is considering replacing the resigned Antonio Cabrales with a new candidate who is more like-minded and has more professional experience: the economist Fernando Fernández.
Knowledgeable sources assure EL MUNDO that this professor from the Instituto de Empresa is the one the PP is considering proposing to the Government as a new director of the Bank of Spain after resigning the other economist he had appointed last week.
Fernández (Madrid, 1956) was appointed director of Bankia and Red Eléctrica by the Government of Mariano Rajoy and has participated in conferences organized by the Faes Foundation. He is also known in the current Ministry of Economic Affairs because he directs the so-called Euro Yearbook, an annual report in collaboration between the ICO Foundation and the Financial Research Foundation.
The First Vice President of the Government, Nadia Calviño, must approve the PP candidate to present him to the Council of Ministers for his appointment next Tuesday and Fernández presents the aforementioned report every year, praised by collaborators of the minister.
Beyond political affinities, Fernández has a long career as a national and international economist. He is a member of the Scientific Council of the prestigious Bruegel think tank in Brussels, of the Advisory Council of the Spanish Institute of Financial Advisors (IEAF) and of the aforementioned Foundation for Financial Research.
Fernández has been Director of the Research Service of Banco Santander and Principal Economist of the International Monetary Fund. As a consultant, he has worked in various countries and has collaborated as an external expert for the European Court of Auditors and the European Parliament. He was also a member of the Committee of Experts for the Reform of the Spanish Tax System.
The PP thus shuffles names that are better known in its ranks than Cabrales, but without taking the step of presenting to the Government people who have been high officials with Mariano Rajoy. They insist that they want to distance themselves from the other counselor appointed by the Government last Tuesday, who is Judith Arnal, until last December Calviño's own chief of staff.
In the PP they want to quickly resolve the crisis opened by the mistake made with the selection of Cabrales. This economist has never been a member of the PP and is not known to be politically affiliated, but he did sign letters of support for the independentista Clara Ponsatí and the former Minister of Economy for Artur Mas, Andreu Mas-Colell, who Alberto Núñez Feijóo was unaware of when he endorsed his appointment. The PP assures that the resignation was "voluntary", although Feijóo does not hide that he no longer had the confidence of his party after discovering these initiatives with Ponsatí and Mas Colell that they did not know about during the selection process in which they were also considering Fernandez.
In addition, economists related to the PP transferred to Feijóo, as published by this newspaper, that Cabrales did not have the ideal economic specialization to be appointed by the opposition in the executive commission of the Bank of Spain.
On the other hand, Fernández, also a doctor in Economics, is a recognized consultant on macroeconomic, regulatory and financial issues that are part of the central activity of the Bank of Spain. His belonging to the Bankia board during the period of José Ignacio Goirigolzarri also gives him banking vision.
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