Nadia Calviño went to Luxembourg almost two years ago to preside over the Executive, but it is as if she had not left the Executive. The presentation of Two thousand days in government in which the Minister of Economy from 2018 to the end of 2023 and first vice president for the last two years reviews in first person her role in the management of the successive crises that the first coalition in power had to face, and in addition to the left, since the Second Republic, it generated an unthinkable mobilization with different generations of socialists and the business community for a woman who carries the reputation of being a technocrat, orthodox and distant from the first nice government of Pedro Sánchez, an impression that she does not share, and feels identified with the definition of defender of rigor and responsibility. “She will always be one of us,” summed up one of the seven ministers, none of them from Sumar, who attended the Ortega-Marañón Foundation. “We have Nadia and they have no one,” another senior Executive official recalled in a mocking tone, paraphrasing Pedro Sánchez when he vindicated Calviño and his good macroeconomic growth data in the face of the lack of an economic plan of the PP that bases its strategy to return to La Moncloa on anti-Sanchism.
The reason for the book (Editorial Plaza & Janés), “which was essential to publish” according to Calviño, is because the former vice president did not want “the policies” of the Government to pass without a trace in the face of the concatenation of difficulties that she had to overcome, especially since 2020. “There is no manual on how to respond to a pandemic, to extraordinary crises. In addition, the great financial crisis [de 2008] It caused Spain to lose a decade and the social damage was impressive. That was what we found when we came to power and that is why the key to our economic policy was fiscal responsibility, social justice and structural reforms. The social dimension has been very important in all the measures taken since 2018,” the EIB president remarked in a meeting moderated by Luis García Montero, director of the Cervantes Institute, and the journalist Marta García Aller.
“I am no longer on the front line of politics, this book is to explain that many times transcendental decisions are made for the lives of citizens and they are covered by the noise of the day, that feverish rhythm that has accelerated exponentially with social networks means that sometimes we do not understand what is happening,” Calviño warned, emphasizing misinformation. And also in the disagreements that Unidas Podemos used to air with the PSOE to their confusion. “There are government coalitions in most European countries and in any government, in any human organization, in any family, there are different points of view. What’s more, each minister has a function and has a point of view, and, therefore, the fact that there are debates and different points of view is normal. And for that there are channels within the organizations, which is quite extraordinary, or at least I had not seen, is the great separation between the reality of work within the Government and all the noise and fictitious controversies, in the vast majority, which were generated around us”, he recalled his differences first with Podemos and then with Sumar.
One of the juiciest passages of the Two thousand days in government It is in which Calviño puts in black and white the bad relationship with the minority partner of the coalition. “With the coalition government, the first since the return of democracy to Spain and almost the only one in Europe with the participation of a far-left party, I became the enemy to be defeated for part of the Government and, at the same time, for many citizens and sectors of the national and international economic world, the main front of resistance against the most radical and irresponsible ideas of the minority partner,” he says.
The relationship was not much better with Sumar. In the book it is also important who is not talked about: Yolanda Díaz. Not a line in 336 pages. Unlike the arrival of socialist ministers from the current Government and since the arrival of Sánchez to La Moncloa in June 2018 – Carolina Darias, mayor of Las Palmas and former head of Territorial Policy, and Reyes Maroto, former head of Industry, Commerce and Tourism and spokesperson for the PSOE in the capital of Spain, had already arrived at the Ortega-Marañón Foundation half an hour before the start of the event – the second vice president and minister of Work looked for another plan and attended, almost at the same time, the screening of the documentary feature film Dolores ibarruri. Passionary, at the Film Academy, a kilometer away and a quarter of an hour walk. The disagreements between Calviño and Díaz were as varied as they were notorious: from the so-called “prohibition of dismissal” during the pandemic, which prevented employers from terminating contracts based on the crisis caused by Covid, to the design and approval of . It was caused by several storms in the coalition government. In the end, Economía rewrote many of its points and had to make concessions on others.
Calviño has avoided putting on medals and has focused on the Government’s general response to the worst health crisis in a century and the reaction to lower inflation, which shot up to 10.8% due to the war in Ukraine. “Everything is a collaborative effort, I am proud of the whole. All the structural reforms, obtaining financing from Europe, the ERTE… It is impossible to isolate a decision. A strategic vision is reflected. As in the decision of the ICO credits, the speed and success in the design of those guarantees. Other countries did it, but we did it faster and more effectively,” she assessed. And what was left in the pipeline? “I would have liked to approve the financial client protection law and have built a large public bank around the ICO,” he acknowledged, under the watchful eye of the first vice president María Jesús Montero – who succeeded Calviño at the end of 2023, when he left for the EIB – and the ministers Fernando Grande-Marlaska (Interior), Carlos Cuerpo (the dolphin that Calviño left in Economy), Óscar López (Digital Transformation), Luis Planas (Agriculture), Isabel Rodríguez (Housing) and Jordi Hereu (Industry).
And there were no more ministers due to agenda reasons: the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, was traveling to The Hague to attend meetings of Eurojust and Europol, and the Government spokesperson and person in charge of Education, Pilar Alegría, who accompanied Felipe VI to the 20th anniversary of the newspaper 20 Minutes at the Royal Theater. Even so, the list of those present has been as varied as it is notable: The former Socialist Secretary General Joaquín Almunia, also former Commissioner for European Affairs and former Vice President of the European Commission; Enrique Barón, minister of the first Government of Felipe González; Adriana Lastra, Government delegate in Asturias and former deputy general secretary of the PSOE; Maritcha Ruiz Mateos, former communication director of the PSOE; the former president of Congress, Meritxell Batet, and Ander Gil, former president of the Senate; the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi; the president of Red Eléctrica, Beatriz Corredor…
The former heavyweight of the Government has stood out as one of the most emotional moments of her time in the Government when the dictator of the Valley of the Fallen, now from Cuelgamuros, retired. “It was a very exciting moment when Franco was removed, leaving behind such a dark moment in our history,” said Calviño, who concluded with a message “of trust and hope” to resolve the housing crisis. “The younger generations are going to have their opportunity,” she said with conviction.
—The book is very well written, have you thought about introducing yourself to the Planet? —García Montero shot with a bullet in the last question.
“Poet and provocateur,” Calviño laughed, avoiding the answer and sharing the good humor with the rest of the room. He then sat down to sign books for a long hour.
