Goodbye to Calviño, the Spanish minister who knew how to unite economic rigor with feminism and social justice

The Economy is probably the most technical portfolio of the entire Council of Ministers. You only have to look at the resumes of their predecessors in the control panel from which Spain's economic policy is directed.. Economists, senior officials and bankers have taken turns in a ministry that, due to its fixation on numbers, was often viewed with antipathy from society and other ministries.

The arrival of Nadia Calviño to the Government in 2018 fully fit that profile: she was the technocrat arriving from Brussels who had to guarantee the maximum possible economic rigor in Spain's accounts.. Five years later, Calviño – elected by the EU countries to preside over the European Investment Bank (EIB) since January 1 – says goodbye to the Government with a much broader profile: she has delivered economically, but she has completed that line of fiscal rigor with a social and feminist one, something that few expected.

The pandemic was their first litmus test: they had to choose between facing the economic crisis with adjustments or with social shields. Calviño was one of the European ministers who opted at that critical moment for the response to be an injection of aid that had never been deployed before in the European Union.. ERTE to maintain employment during confinement, ICO guarantees for SMEs and mortgage and rent relief measures were some of the measures implemented in Spain.

The plan that Calviño designed received the name 'Social Shield' from the Government. And, although with adjustments, some of these measures have been maintained until now, whether justified by the waves of covid or by the effects that the war in Ukraine has had on inflation and, in general, on the world economy as a whole. .

The proof of covid came after the two electoral processes that were held in 2019 and in which Calviño remained Minister of Economy. In the last one, she was chosen by Pedro Sánchez to stop the attacks of Pablo Iglesias, former leader of Podemos, in the first coalition government in recent Spanish democratic history.. Already then she received the stripes of vice president, being the third. Then the second. And finally, the first. That rise came by endorsing the mantra of firmly combining fiscal responsibility, social justice and structural reforms.

The vice president leaves the Executive with a social profile, but also with the support of economic data. According to the latest report from the Chamber of Commerce, the country's GDP will have grown by 2.4% this year. In addition, Spain is also one of the eurozone countries that has best controlled inflation.. The latest price increase data marks 3.2%, far from the 9.8% that was registered in March of last year. To a large extent, the good performance of the Spanish economy is related to the social shield deployed after the coronavirus pandemic.

Social measures

Some of the social measures surrounding her management came directly from her department, such as the imposition of a female quota on the boards of directors of large companies, or the commitment to the connectivity of rural areas.. Also the measures to guarantee the financial inclusion of the elderly or the line of guarantees to provide liquidity to companies and the self-employed through ICO credits, which was provided with up to 100,000 million euros.

Others were coordinated with other ministries from the Government's Delegate Commission for Economic Affairs, which Calviño has chaired since he took office.. These included the development of the Minimum Living Income (IMV) for the most disadvantaged, in this case promoted by the Ministry of Inclusion and Social Security of José Luis Escrivá; or the guarantee of the supply of electrical energy, among others. Furthermore, Calviño's European experience was crucial for Spain to obtain 140,000 million euros from the recovery and resilience mechanism.. His contacts in the Commission were also key to agreeing on the plan and closing the committed reforms, which have all passed through his table.

Feminist reference

One of the improvements in public perception of the vice president occurred coinciding with the departure in 2021 of Vice President Carmen Calvo.. Calviño became the feminist reference of the PSOE within Sánchez's cabinet, compared to Irene Montero, who represented the feminism of Unidas Podemos from the Ministry of Equality. Thus, it is worth noting that the central role that his Ministry was assuming, as director of the Government's economic policy, was accompanied by greater confrontation with those responsible for other ministries, mainly with the second vice president, the leader of Sumar Yolanda Díaz.

All in all, the vice president made the flag of feminism her own, and not just in a theoretical way.. For example, he put it into practice when he announced that he would refuse to pose in photos of events in which there were only men.

Another of the images for which Calviño will be remembered is the one that united him with Carlos San Juan, a retired doctor who managed to collect more than 650,000 signatures with the campaign I am older, not an idiot.. The vice president recently managed to prohibit banks from charging commissions for cash withdrawals at the window to those over 65 years of age and people with disabilities.. Regarding banks, Calviño will hold his last Council of Ministers this Wednesday with the approval of a new threshold so that around 100,000 families with incomes of up to 37,800 euros per year can qualify for the approved mortgage relief measures.

In the social balance of his management in front of the Ministry of Economy – which until the formation of the last government also included the Department of Digital Transformation – is the purpose of ending the “digital divide” that exists, above all, in rural areas.. He did it with the launch of the Rural Demand program. Conéctate35, a new high-speed broadband service for 35 euros per month and available throughout the national territory.