Nadia Calviño has chaired the Council of Ministers this Tuesday in the absence of Pedro Sánchez, who is at the Davos Forum with an agenda full of meetings with the aim of attracting investors. It is not the first time that the minister has taken the reins in the absence of the president as first vice president of the Government. However, this Council of Ministers will prevent the Minister of Economic Affairs from accompanying Sánchez at the annual summit that brings together Heads of State and Government, political leaders and important personalities from the world of the economy. Instead, it is the Foreign Minister who has accompanied Sánchez.
According to article 13 of the Government Law, “in cases of vacancy, absence or illness, the functions of the President of the Government will be assumed by the Vice Presidents, in accordance with the corresponding order of priority, and, failing them, by the Ministers, according to the order of precedence of the Departments”, so Calviño could be absent from the Council of Ministers and it would be the second vice president who would exercise the functions of the president.
That is, Yolanda Diaz.
In fact, Nadia Calviño has already participated in other editions of this Forum, which takes place in Switzerland, but without a Council of Ministers in between. This Tuesday’s, in addition, takes on special importance because, in the midst of the supply crisis, the Government will approve the Semiconductor Perte, the largest to date with more than 11,000 million euros of public investment, with the aim of attract chipmakers to the country. An important measure that, in the absence of the president and if the first vice president had not been there, would have been signed by successor to Pablo Iglesias in the second vice presidency.
The Davos Forum, which started on May 22 in the town of the Swiss Alps that bears the same name, will last until the 26th. Precisely this Monday, Calviño was outside of Spain participating in the Eurogroup meeting in Brussels, but he has returned to Madrid without going through Davos. In addition to the Council of Ministers, he will preside over the government control session in the Senate this afternoon.
Before Calviño, Carmen Calvo already prevented a member of Podemos from being the highest authority in the country for a day. In July 2020, the first year of the pandemic, with the President of the Government in Brussels celebrating the fourth day of the European Council to seek an agreement on the EU Recovery Fund, the then First Vice President had to postpone a trip to Paris that was on his agenda, thus preventing Pablo Igesias from being the highest authority in the country for a day.
Months earlier, in March 2020, Calvo also prevented Iglesias from chairing the commission prior to the Council of Ministers despite being sick with covid. The vice president spent a few days hospitalized for the disease and, when she was transferred to her home, she chose to chair the commission prepared by the Council of Ministers by telephone – she had to remain isolated – without giving the then leader of Podemos a chance to do so .
