Nadia Calviño, the Brussels technocrat who piloted the economic recovery in Spain and who now aspires to return to the EU

Nadia Calviño will once again be at the helm of the Ministry of Economy for one more term. Pedro Sánchez has once again opted for one of his most technical profiles to direct Spain's economic policy, although the number two in the Government has been cultivating an increasingly political side, especially in the final stretch of the previous legislature.. Calviño inaugurates a renewed mandate that, however, could be brief. His candidacy to preside over the European Investment Bank (EIB) is about to be decided and if he obtains the necessary support he will head to Luxembourg, leaving the head of economic policy vacant.

Calviño (A Coruña, 1968) has one of the most extensive resumes of the entire Council of Ministers. Graduated first in Economics and then in Law, she has known the ministry she has directed for many years.. In it she has held a deputy directorship and a general directorship and, in addition, she is a career civil servant. He is part of the body of Commercial Technicians and State Economists, one of the elite groups of the public administration.

His dizzying civil servant career continued in the European Commission, where he held several senior positions during the twelve years he was in Brussels and learned how the ins and outs of community institutions work.. In Brussels, she became the highest-ranking Spanish official in the European institutions.

However, her debut in politics did not occur until 2018, when Sánchez claimed her to direct the Ministry of Economy.. Calviño is also one of the few ministers who has always repeated in the Councils of Ministers since 2018. Only Margarita Robles, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Luis Planas, Teresa Ribera and María Jesús Montero share that milestone.

His marked technical profile and deep knowledge of the European institutions are his two great political assets, facets that would ultimately prove key during the fire-plagued legislature.. The pandemic was the first of them. Calviño was in charge of piloting the recovery of an economy that sank more than any other in Europe, harmed by the great weight of sectors with high human contact such as tourism or hospitality.

Then the recovery funds and the reform agenda that accompany them would arrive.. In this section, Calviño's European experience was crucial for Spain to obtain 160,000 million from the recovery and resilience mechanism. His contacts in the Commission have also been key to agreeing on the plan and closing the committed reforms, which have all passed through his table.. The ERTE, the minimum vital income, the increases in the minimum wage also bear Calviño's imprint, say those who know her.

The complete closure of the pandemic wound would not come until well into 2022, making Spain one of the countries that tried the hardest to return to the EU's pre-pandemic GDP level.. After the pandemic would come the war in Ukraine and the decrees in response to the inflationary crisis that worsened after the Russian invasion. Since March 2022, the Government has approved seven packages of measures to mitigate the effects of the war, all of them coordinated by the department headed by Calviño.

The central role of her ministry as director of the country's economic policy has caused Calviño to be one of the ministers who has clashed the most with the coalition partners.. Especially with the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz. Calviño and Díaz have had notable clashes and have often found themselves in antagonistic positions.. The scope of the mortgage relief measures, the profit margins of supermarkets, the increases in the minimum wage or the labor reform itself have been a source of discord between the two vice presidents, with Sánchez as arbitrator.

Those who know the minister say that Calviño is very far from the gray bureaucrat image that is often projected of her.. They highlight her affability, her rigorous way of working and define her as a person who rolls up her sleeves until things go well.

In the final stretch of the legislature, Calviño cultivated a more political and belligerent image, with notable parliamentary interventions and a prominent role in the campaign for Sánchez's re-election.. In her history, however, there remains the stain of her husband's controversial signing attempt by National Heritage, who had to resign from the position amid accusations of nepotism.

Minister with international aspirations

The minister who piloted the recovery after the pandemic and designed the response to the war in Ukraine now faces the challenge of keeping track of the Spanish economy in a Europe that has been stagnant for a year now.. With the pandemic gap already overcome, forecasts place the Spanish economy as one of those that will grow the most in the entire EU in the next two years. If the latest EU projections come true, in 2025 Spain will become the large Spanish economy that will have grown the most since the pandemic.

However, the situation remains fraught with risks.. Spanish households are fully suffering the impact of interest rates in the form of increasingly expensive mortgages and inflation that has not yet disappeared from the map. Furthermore, the minister will have to face this situation under the restraint of the European fiscal rules that will be back in force in 2024.. From Brussels they have already asked Spain not to renew the energy support measures.

However, all these challenges will have to be addressed by someone else if Calviño achieves his long-awaited position at the European Investment Bank (EIB).. The minister has fought on several occasions to achieve relevant positions in international institutions. He already tried it at the IMF when Christine Lagarde left for the European Central Bank in 2019 and was on the verge of taking over the presidency of the Eurogroup – the informal debate forum for the economy and finance ministers of the eurozone – in 2021, which was offered to her. narrowly escaped.

If she achieves the presidency of the EIB, the newly elected Minister of Economy will become the third Spaniard to occupy an important position in high European institutions, only behind Josep Borrell (head of European diplomacy) and Luis de Guindos (vice president of the ECB).