FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
New Spanish Cabinet To Be Officially Presented
June 7, 2018 (EIRNS)—Spain’s new Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced his new cabinet today, which at first glance appears to be EU friendly. The media play up that fact that the cabinet is comprised of 11 women and 6 men.
Some of the highlights:
A former Andalusia councilor, María Jesús Montero is Finance Minister. She will have to set the public sector spending ceiling for 2019, a necessary first step for Spain’s local and regional governments to make their own budgets.
Sánchez has already said he will adhere to the budget of the previous government, which commits him to reducing the public deficit to a Brussels target of 2.2% of economic output from 3.1% in 2017.
Nadia Calvino is Economy Minister. She has been in Brussels since 2006, where she was director general for the EU budget for the European Commission. Her boss was notorious Budget Commissioner Günther Oettinger. If that is not bad enough, she got full endorsement from a representative of Banco Santander. She presumably helped draft the EU’s long-term budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), to run from 2021-2027, which is coming up for discussion among member states, many of which will want changes. Spain has been concerned with the proposed cuts to the Common Agricultural Policy.
Josep Borrell, a former President of the European Parliament, will be the new Foreign Minister, and is an outspoken opponent of Catalan independence.
Dolores Delgado, a prosecutor specializing in human rights and terrorism cases, will become Justice Minister.
Meritxell Batet will be tasked with handling the Catalan independence crisis in her new role as Territorial Minister.
The bright spot in the government is Pedro Duque, a former astronaut with two space missions, one on the Discovery in 1998 and a second on the International Space Station in 2003. Duque will be Minister for Science, Innovation and Universities. Duque is a vocal supporter of science, and in 2013 said, “If we keep not investing in our future, this country will sink forever,” during protests against cuts to science effected by the government of Mariano Rajoy. In a letter published in El País in 2012, Duque also defended education as a fundamental investment.
