Ángel Gavilán, the Director of the Economics and Research Department at the Bank of Spain, has resigned after presenting – out of loyalty – the first Bank of Spain report with former minister José Luis Escrivá as the new governor.
It was known that the presented report had omitted the widely shared concern about the Spanish pension system, which, after the reform launched by Escrivá himself, faces increasing expenses and must receive almost €60 billion in annual transfers from the State (the exact equivalent of the Spanish public deficit) to meet its obligations. It was already clear at the time that the new governor did not share any concern about the issue and described the economists of the issuing bank as “unsophisticated.”
Now it is known that it was not only the suppression of that chapter that led the Director of the Economics and Research Department of the Bank of Spain to submit his resignation. As newspapers point out, “the 2024 report is 104 pages shorter than the 2023 report; it has no separate chapters on public policies, ecological transition, or housing, and it lacks 10 sections; the usual breakdown of the main ideas is missing; employment is covered in an 11-page chapter, whereas the previous year there were three chapters and 35 pages; analyses on inequality and household vulnerabilities and business demographics, population aging – which is related to pensions –, problems of access to housing, or the labor consequences of technological and demographic changes have disappeared.”
Undoubtedly, the Bank of Spain will have gained in sophistication with the arrival of José Luis Escrivá at the top of the institution. However, it does not seem that with the arrival of the former minister, the Bank of Spain has gained in independence.
