The Diplomat
Carlos Cuerpo, current Secretary General of the Treasury, has been appointed Minister of Economy, Trade and Enterprise, while the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, gains weight in the Executive, by assuming the position of First Vice-President of the Government, following the reshuffle forced by the departure of Nadia Calviño to take over the European Investment Bank on 1 January.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced yesterday, during an institutional statement without questions to the media in the Moncloa Complex, the changes made in the Government, in which, from now on, María Jesús Montero will be the ‘number two’, a position she also holds within the PSOE.
Referring to the new Minister of Economy, Sánchez said: “He is a young professional, but of proven competence and a public servant with an exemplary career within the Administration”, as well as “an economist of enormous prestige both nationally and in European institutions and multilateral financial organisations”, assured Pedro Sánchez.
Carlos Cuerpo, a man of Calviño’s greatest confidence, will be in charge of directing the economic policy of the Executive and will preside over the Government Delegate Commission for Economic Affairs (CDGAE). In addition, the new minister will share some of the powers of the former Galician minister with María Jesús Montero, who will be the new first vice president of the Government, which implies the disappearance of the fourth Vice Presidency. As part of this remodeling, the Secretary of State for Public Function, until now in the hands of the Ministry of Finance, will become part of the Ministry of Digital Transformation, led by José Luis Escrivá, whose powers are reinforced in this remodeling of the Executive to the front of the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Service.
In an institutional declaration at La Moncloa, Sánchez assured that the changes “contribute to reinforcing the high political profile and the proven technical solvency” of the government. After the reshuffle, the government will now have three vice-presidents – Montero, Díaz and Ribera – instead of four.
The new Minister of Economy, Commerce and Business rose to the position of Secretary General of the Treasury and International Financing in August 2021. Carlos Cuerpo, born in Badajoz in 1980 and a commercial technician of the State, has been responsible for leading the representation of Spain in the Economic and Financial Committee of the European Union (CEF), which is the body that prepares the meetings of the Eurogroup and Ecofin, as well as the permanent representation in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the European Bank of Investments or the G20, among others.
From the class of 2008, he has a degree in Economics from the University of Extremadura, a Master in Economics from the London School of Economics and a doctorate in Economics from the Autonomous University of Madrid. After working four years in the General Directorate of Macroeconomic Analysis of the Ministry of Economy, he was highlighted as a national expert in the General Directorate of Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission, exercising responsibilities related to the Macroeconomic Imbalances Procedure.
Subsequently, he specialized in the preparation and evaluation of macroeconomic forecasts for the Spanish economy and the sustainability analysis of its debt as director of the Economic Analysis Division of the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF) and as general director of Macroeconomic Analysis.
Calviño
Sánchez wanted to have a few words of gratitude for Nadia Calviño, whom he highlighted for her “solvency and honesty” since she joined the Government in 2018. With her appointment as head of the European Investment Bank (EIB), he stated, “Spain and Europe gain a European at heart who will be on the board of directors of the largest multilateral financial institution in the world.”
This is an appointment of “enormous relevance” because it reinforces the presence and influence of Spain at the core of the European project and joins, in this sense, that of Josep Borrell as vice president of the European Commission and High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security, he continued.
“This designation does justice to the exceptional career of Nadia Calviño at the head of the Government’s economic policy in a time of enormous complexity (…) full of unprecedented threats and challenges that we have been able to overcome with agreement, as proven by the main indicators,” he added.
