Sánchez sells economic optimism in Davos: "Spain is containing the damage of Putin's war better than others"

Pedro Sánchez is very comfortable in Davos.

He has already come three times, and it shows that the international economic environment is a world in which he moves well.

After some misgivings in the first visits due to the unprecedented coalition with United We Can and the vice-presidency of Pablo Iglesias, which generated some doubts in the economic world, Sánchez is already received at the most important world meeting of business and high politics as a president "

”, as they say in English, that is, favorable to business activity.

And he tries to take advantage of the meeting to look for investors, especially in the microchips and superconductors sector, the great star of this year, with the 12,000 million that the Council of Ministers approved this Tuesday in a PERTE (strategic project for the recovery and economic transformation) to encourage the large multinational companies in this sector to establish themselves in Spain and create a genuine European industry alternative to the Asian one.

“Spain will not lose the race for the most advanced technologies.

On the contrary, we want to place ourselves at the forefront of industrial and technological progress, and the Strategic Project on semiconductors demonstrates this”, Sánchez explained in Davos.

The entire schedule of private meetings of the president in the Swiss town is focused on that, through appointments with the top executives of four large multinationals in this sector: Intel, Qualcomm, Micron and Cisco.

Sánchez has taken advantage of his central speech, with the top managers of some of the largest Spanish companies in the front row —Iberdrola, Repsol, Naturgy, BBVA— to try to sell economic optimism in a Davos dominated by an atmosphere of uncertainty in the face of the war in Ukraine .

Sánchez has met privately with these Spanish companies —Telefonica was also at the meeting—, and several of those present confirm that he was much more optimistic than the businessmen themselves, who see great uncertainty, although none is radically pessimistic.

"Spain is containing the damage much better than most of the economies around us," Sánchez insisted.

"Of the five largest economies in the eurozone, Spain continues to be the one that will grow the most this year, and the inflation figures are in line with those of other economies in the eurozone."

Spain has had to revise its growth forecast downwards, with a reduction greater than that of other neighboring economies, and it is one of those that has suffered the most from the covid crisis.

The pre-crisis level of GDP has not yet been recovered, something that will foreseeably happen at the end of next year, much later than other large economies.

But the Executive clings to the employment data, which are "impressive", according to the president, with 20 million people employed, and to the fact that even with the drop,

“There are inherent strengths in the Spanish economy that give us reasons to be optimistic in the face of adversity from external and unpredictable factors such as the covid and now the war unleashed by [Vladímir] Putin,” the president insisted.

Sánchez, who presents himself in Davos as a leader who defends multilateralism and liberal democracy against the "nativists", referring to the extreme right of Vox and others, and those who are committed to totalitarianism, has focused his speech on the defense of democracy against the Russian president.

Davos is absolutely focused on isolating Russia.

So much so that the possibility of any Russian company participating, previously very present, has been closed.

In a very symbolic way, the Russia House, a large house in the center of the main street of this idyllic ski town in the middle of the Swiss Alps, has been transformed into "the house of Russian war crimes", with permanent images of the Bucha massacres and speeches by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, broadcast on the screens.

In this atmosphere of total clash with Putin, Sánchez has claimed not only liberal democracy but also NATO, and has confirmed that Sweden and Finland, the two countries that want to enter now as a response to Russian expansionism, will be at the Madrid summit on June 29 and 30.

Sánchez has insisted that his intention at this summit is to strengthen the ties between the EU and NATO, and has also offered himself as a mediator so that some Latin American countries that have doubts about Russia enter the bloc of those who they are isolating

The president, as usual, has not made any mention of internal political issues in his speech and, therefore, continues without assessing the controversy over Juan Carlos I's first visit to Spain since he went to Abu Dhabi due to the scandals around his opaque fortune abroad.

His government has indeed launched a very harsh message against the king emeritus for not giving the explanations that Sánchez has asked him for several times, but the president has avoided controversy for the time being.

Expressly asked in the corridors, Sánchez has insisted that he did not want to make any assessment of this matter because he is focused on his economic agenda in Davos and especially in the meetings with the multinationals in the microchip sector.

Sánchez finished off the speech with a great defense of democracy against totalitarianism: “We are seeing the end of the era of naivety.

We are seeing how our values ​​have to be defended.

Putin's frontal attack reminds us that the future is a land to be conquered.

There is nothing inevitable about the rise of extremism, inequality, and tyranny.

There is an opportunity for the values ​​of democracy, freedom and international law.

It is time to trust ourselves.

Democracy and multilateralism may be complicated, boring and imperfect, but we now know that they are the only path to lasting peace and freedom.

The time for complacency is over."

Sánchez: why is it so difficult to intervene in the European electricity market and not in the financial market?

After this central intervention, Sánchez participated in a round table in the afternoon focused on the energy crisis, another of the most debated issues in Davos.

And there the president showed his impatience with his European partners, who have been holding back for months the profound reform of the electricity market that Spain is promoting with some allies and the opposition, especially from Germany.

Sánchez had an intense crossroads, in a friendly way, with Frans Timmermans, vice president of the European Commission focused on the "green deal", who had launched several praises for the Spanish Government's recovery plan and its commitment to renewables and for the transformation of homes to reduce energy consumption and favor the installation of solar panels.

“Spain has presented a fabulous plan, triple A, which has great reforms in this.

But why are these profits from energy companies not taxed?

We have to force them, especially the oil companies, to invest more in renewables.”

In the front row, Sánchez Galán, from Iberdrola, who always defends that in reality the ones who are benefiting from this crisis are the oil companies and not so much the electricity companies as his own, nodded enthusiastically while Sánchez looked at him and smiled because he has heard similar things in person several times.

The Spanish president asked for the floor.

“Spain was one of the first countries to intervene on the issue of benefits from heaven.

But Mr Timmermans, why is it so difficult to intervene in the European electricity market?

In Spain we have been considering it for 12 months.

Why is it so difficult with the electricity market, but we do intervene when the financial system malfunctions?” Sánchez insisted.

Timmermans defended himself.

“Energy companies are pocketing huge profits while people suffer.

That is not natural.

We must reform the market, but it has taken us 30 years to build it.

We cannot harm it with hasty decisions.

The Commission is preparing proposals for the next European Council”, he conceded.

Sánchez, Timmermans and others agreed at the end: