Miguel A. Fernandez Ordonez

Miguel A. Fernández Ordóñez is one of the key figures in recent economic policy in Spain. His curriculum in this respect is undeniable: he has been Governor of the Bank of Spain, Secretary of State for Finance, President of the National Commission of the Electrical System, (predecessor of the current regulatory body, the National Commission for Energy), President of the Spanish Tribunal for the Protection of Competition and three times Secretary of State (for Economy, for Business and for Finance and Budget), among other responsibilities.

His international experience is equally significant. He has formed part of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, the Financial Stability Forum, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. His activity has not been restricted to the public sphere, for he has undertaken consultancy work for businesses such as Ernst & Young and Coca-Cola. He has also shown himself to be a prolific economics commentator in his columns for the Spanish national newspaper El País and his commentaries for the national radio network SER.

„Spain’s biggest problem is not having progressed in ‘flexicurity’“

He knows the economic world, therefore, in all its facets: the domestic and the global, the financial and the productive, the theoretical and the positivist, the institutional and the ideological.

Throughout his time as an administrator he has either been at the front line – or the leading figure – in facts which have convulsed the economic panorama in both Spain and the world: Spain’s entry into the European Union, the creation of the Euro, the international financial crisis of 2007 and the restructuring of national banking.

This vast range of experience, together with his excellent oratory skills, make him an outstanding communicator. His public talks focus primarily on the three themes about which, professionally, he feels most passionate:

• Financial Regulation and Supervision. His experience as Governor of the Bank of Spain and his participation in organisations such as the ECB, the World Bank and the IMF bestow him with a unique authority to reflect on one of the key issues in the future of global economics.
• The Correction of Economic Structures. With the conviction that structural reform should be tightly bound to the reality of each country, and that, therefore, no economic formula is universal, Fernández Ordóñez provides an in-depth analysis of different scenarios, both Spanish and global, and their solutions.
• Commercial Liberalisation and Competition. One of the themes to which Fernández Ordóñez pays most attention in his economic vision: methods of liberalisation in the twenty-first century, the variable concept of oligopoly and the needs of opening markets to competition.