The first vice-president of the Government in office, Nadia Calviño, is optimistic about achieving the presidency of the European Investment Bank (EIB) in her first statements after the defeat of the other Spanish candidacy of the moment to a European position, that of Margarita Delgado. "I think we are going to succeed in the EIB process," he told TVE. However, she has assumed that the election of a new president of this institution will not occur when she expected, at the informal meeting of EU finance ministers this weekend in Santiago de Compostela. "Most likely there will simply be information on how the process is going," he said, stressing the importance of his rivals, which include European Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager and former Italian minister Daniele Franco.
The vice president has avoided criticizing or regretting that the European Central Bank has chosen this Wednesday the German Claudia Buch in front of the deputy governor of the Bank of Spain. Margarita Delgado, to chair the Single Banking Supervision Mechanism, despite the fact that it occurs against the criteria of the European Parliament. However, he did stress that "the process is not over." "Let's see what the European Parliament says," he said in reference to the fact that the Economic Affairs Committee of the European Parliament unanimously asked the ECB to choose Delgado and not Buch. The vice president of this commission, the MEP of Citizens Eva Poptcheva, has affirmed to EL MUNDO that there is a possibility of veto. The Spanish Socialists have not reacted so far.
In any case, Calviño has praised the "excellent" deputy governor and has assured that he supported that Delgado opted for the position because "the more Spanish candidacies there are, the more likely that some will fall." And, indeed, after Delgado opted for the supervisory authority and lost, Calviño has more chances of getting the EIB. Everything indicates that the decision of the finance ministers will be postponed until at least the end of October, once the final outcome of Buch's candidacy is known and the support of Calviño, Vestager and Franco emerges more clearly.
On the other hand, Calviño has been against the ECB deciding this Thursday a new rate hike, but has also been respectful of its powers: "In the case of the Spanish economy one would say that it is no longer necessary to take more measures to combat inflation, although we have the challenge of food prices. But it is also true that there are other European countries that still have very high inflation." In his opinion, "that is the difficulty that the ECB gets right: that it has to make a decision that is good both for Spain, which has the lowest inflation, and for other countries that may still be in much higher inflations."
On the meteoric rise of olive oil, Calviño has cooled the idea that speculation in the distribution sector influences. "We are not aware that there is speculation," he said.