The Popular Party has proposed the doctor in economics Fernando Fernández Méndez de Andés as a candidate for the Council of the Bank of Spain, after Antonio Cabrales, whom the political party had initially proposed, resigned hours after his appointment was approved by the Council of Ministers. Andés has a technical profile of recognized prestige. He was chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and is an international consultant on macroeconomic, regulatory and financial issues.
In addition, he is a member of the Advisory Board of the Spanish Institute of Financial Advisors (IEAF) and of the Foundation for Financial Research (FEF), of the Bruegel Scientific Council in Brussels, and is currently director of the Euro Yearbook, edited by FEF and ICO Foundation.
Author of academic and current affairs publications, he has collaborated as an external expert for the European Court of Auditors and the European Parliament, and was a member of the Committee of Experts for the Reform of the Spanish Tax System. He has also been Chancellor of the University of Nebrija and the European University of Madrid and director of Red Eléctrica Corporación.
This new candidate would occupy the position for which Cabrales was appointed, who, in turn, was going to replace, along with Judith Arnal –in substitution of Carmen Alonso (chosen by the PSOE), Fernando Eguidazu (appointed in his day by the PP) whose terms as directors of the Bank of Spain ended at the beginning of this month. Cabrales resigned from the position a few hours after the appointment, without giving official explanations for his departure, although behind the decision would be the controversy of his support for the former Catalan minister Clara Ponsatí, who escaped from the Spanish Justice after the illegal referendum on October 1, and the former Minister of Economy Andreu Mas-Colell, prosecuted by the Court of Auditors for alleged embezzlement of public money to promote the ‘procés’ abroad.