Nobody four years and a few months ago would have thought that Nadia Calviño (A Coruña, 1968) was going to put the socialist caucus on its feet and win the applause of members of United We Can. Pedro Sánchez elected today the First Vice President of the Government after the motion of censure against Mariano Rajoy as Minister of Economy and Business to send a message of calm to the markets. Coming from Brussels, where she had held different positions in the European administration, Calviño presented herself as the guardian of financial orthodoxy in a progressive Executive supported by United We Can and the pro-independence forces.
Calviño has been like a diesel car: it has gone from less to more. She arrived as a technocrat focused on the economy and, little by little, has been acquiring a more political profile. Although he has already been growing for several control sessions, the culmination came last Wednesday, when he received a standing ovation from his colleagues, including congratulations from Pedro Sánchez, in his ‘face to face’ with the Vox spokesman, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros , to whom he recommended that he change friends after saying that he did not know any Spaniard who had prospered since the Socialists were in government.
“Do you mean that you don’t know anyone who receives the minimum interprofessional salary? That you do not know any young person who has obtained a permanent job for the first time thanks to the labor reform? [le preguntó mientras Sánchez y la vicepresidenta y ministra de Trabajo, Yolanda Díaz, asentían entre sonrisas] That you do not know anyone who benefits from scholarships? That you don’t know anyone who benefits from investing in education? That you don’t know anyone who benefits from public health, free public transport, aid to the self-employed, ERTEs, aid to companies, ICO guarantees, the minimum vital income, the help families with poor children? But how can it be, Mr. Espinosa de los Monteros, that you don’t know any real Spaniards?”, ended the economic vice president, pulling the blocs that support the Government out of lethargy.
In the environment of the vice president they admit that she has been gaining ease and attribute it to the parliamentary experience that she has achieved in this time. “It tans you”, these sources explain about the time that she has already been at the forefront of the portfolio. They also consider that she has a greater focus since she is first vice president in part because she faces “first swords” from other parties.
Calviño went from the third vice-presidency to the first with the profound remodeling of the Government that Sánchez carried out in the summer of 2021. The decision was to place her above Yolanda Díaz so that the head of Labor was not above the economic manager of the coalition up the ladder. A mere formality, they argued in Moncloa. The truth is that it is Calviño who replaces Sánchez at the head of the Council of Ministers when the president is abroad. It has already happened several times.
With the departure of Carmen Calvo, Sánchez was left practically without squires. “Calviño is having a higher political profile every time,” a socialist observer reflected months ago, who attributes it in part to the need to “mimicry” Yolanda Díaz. “He has gained enormous space,” he adds.
Beyond winning in the “melee”, Calviño has promoted communication in recent times, with a lot of activity on social networks with initiatives such as a one-minute balance video of the week or interaction on platforms such as Instagram. And she has been creating her own profile: a few months ago she announced that she would not attend debates surrounded by men and she even removed herself from a photo at a business summit because she was the only woman.
The technocrat who arrived from Brussels has also become one of the main defenders of coalition measures, such as labor reform or the rise in the minimum interprofessional wage, despite having clashed with other members of the Government, mainly United We Can but not only. Calviño was not only the nemesis of Pablo Iglesias, first, and of Yolanda Díaz and Ione Belarra, later, but she was also a stranger in the socialist ranks themselves, where they came to remind her that the electoral program included the repeal of the labor reform . Despite the enthusiasm with which they begin to look at her in the socialist ranks, in Podemos they retain the same opinion that they have always had of her.
But Calviño has long claimed herself as a progressive politician, despite her resistance. “For me it has been particularly important that Europe has given the right response to the crisis this time. A progressive response that provides safety nets not for the banks, but for the citizens and the States”, he expressed at the 40th Congress of the PSOE, in which he collected an award. The vice president without a card, who was the only minister who resigned from going on the electoral lists in the general elections, surprised those present with her speech.
“The match has been with me for as long as I can remember. I come from a republican family, very committed, which transmitted to me the social democratic values, which are what have guided me all my life. Recently I even discovered that I was in the photos of the first electoral campaign when I was 8 years old holding a rose. And that commitment to the project is what led me to accept President Sánchez’s proposal in June 2018. I thought at that time that I would never forgive myself for not having been helping my country and an exciting project of change,” said Calviño, from who until then little more was known than that she is the daughter of José María Calviño, director of RTVE in the times of Felipe González. “It is a very happy and exciting day. I only have one regret and that is that my grandparents do not live to see their granddaughter vice president of a socialist government ”, Calviño finished in the highest body of the PSOE a year ago, when he began training to fight with the spokesman of the extreme right.
