The Sánchez government introduced a progressive control framework over organizations that were born as technical and independent counterweights.
Since el Bank of Spain al OTHER, passersby Red Electric y now there AIReF. The process is clear: put politically dangerous people before independent bodies.
This process materialized both through the names of people attached to the executive and through explicit political pressures where data or information does not fall into the official discourse.
El Banco de España, a formally independent dog, saw this The government tried to influence the public debate about the deficitdebt and reforms, reducing the de facto critical space of the institution.
The most obvious episode of the interventionist revolution takes place at the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE). In 2022, the President of INE, Juan Manuel Rodríguez Púpublished during weeks of executive criticism of the PIB and CPI numbers, officially confirmed as technical irregularities but interpreted by the state’s own superior statistics as a direct attempt at the organism’s independence.
The Statistics Association advised that the operation could be considered “gravitating toward independence” motivated by the government’s dissatisfaction with data that did not match its predictions.
Both INE and Banco de España have maintained their independence, but have introduced useful changes that undermine their position as counterweights.
In the Spanish bank, the entire chapter on pension sustainability was removed from the annual report. In the case of INE, professionals try to maintain independence from wind and tide.
The most obvious episode of the interventionist revolution takes place in the National Statistical Institute
Only if it was possible to modify the useful elements of the communication in the press notes, the validity of the data is not valid.
However, these “small” changes in communication subtly convey the notes of entry into political discourse, leaving critical economists with the daunting task of decoding and eviscerating “convenient” phrases that their own data do not justify.
Political leaders don’t just have a goal tipping the balance makes the governmental triumphant mensaje in communicationsuntil in practice they give the government more capacity to orient methodology, times, messages and names more towards the most responsible persons.
It thus violates the basic principle that entities that tax and report information must be blinded by the temptation to cover up or hide inconvenient macroeconomic facts in the last sentences of the report.
It failed to increase the credibility of the information, which is then of the highest quality, but it is inconceivable that the changes in presentation and communication will make it more complete to accommodate the inconvenient data, and the official communication is the part that must be perceived with great headlines.
PUSH Independent Office for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF), which was created to monitor the sustainability of public finances and evaluate gas policy, has a constant factor of tension with the government.
Political leaders don’t just have a goal tipping the balance makes the governmental triumphant mensaje in communications
Cristina Herreropresident of 2020, repeatedly advocated the need to preserve the body’s technical independence and called for a political consensus to strengthen its institutional position.
It now completes a six-year mandate marked by critical information on official forecasts, public sustainability and the design of public gas programs.
A government response was proposed to Sánchez as the new president before the end of the mandate Inés Olondriz, the current General Secretary for Autonomous and Local Finance, it is said, a high load organically dependent on the own Ministry of Agriculture, which AIReF has to oversee.
Not if he opts for “home” work, not an independent academic, not even for a central figure in fiscal policy decision-makinga model of autonomous financing and an essential part of the design of media as controversial as dark Catalan or quitas de deuda.
This introduces a clear conflict of interest for the supervisor who must independently evaluate these types of decisions.
The system of counterbalances and independent institutions must be transformed a better example of government policy where those responsible are once again part of the government machinerywhich needs to be analyzed, evaluated and above all criticized and evaluated.
Cristina Herreropresident of 2020, repeatedly advocated the need to preserve the body’s technical independence and called for a political consensus to strengthen its institutional position
The student chooses the teacher and the notes and grades magically improve.
These movements follow a very clear goal. If independent bodies produce diagnostics that are politically inconvenient, whether in matters of official statistics, macroeconomic forecasts or fiscal assessment, the government is forced to state the profiles clearly in line with the executive.
Official rhetoric always calls for “modernization”“coordination” or “refuerzo” of the system, but the real result is a gradual erosion of the neutrality and credibility of the institutions.
The AIReF case is particularly revealing because no one wants to hide political profiles.
The goal is not to co-exist with technical counterweights without being neutralized or subordinated to the governmental relationship. Even if the latter cannot be done, at least the breaking of the balance makes a mind that pleases the government.
Fiscal supervision under the supervision of a senior official of the supervised ministry is a clear indication of the intent of institutional capture.
Evidence quickly emerges in press briefings and notes that move from diplomats and technicians, but critics, to diplomats and technicians, eliminating or relegating them to chapters that might otherwise be inconvenient.
If this process is consolidated, y what are today amenazas is turning into a real stage attack processSpain runs the risk of acabar in a model in which data is shaped by policy and not by policy to data.
In a country where there are no created maquilladas words or messages of “reducción de deuda” that disguise the constant broadcasting of compromised mayors, this name shows that the Sánchez executive does not care and does not seem to be an independent who wants political profiles and unconditional adhesions.
The silent heroes, the technicians who work in these organisms, are the hope that keeps us a serious country. Moment.
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