The Chairman of Red Eléctrica de España and former Minister of Public Administrations, Jordi Sevilla, reviewed the 'Spain's current moment' at the Proa Communication Observatory held on Tuesday 5 February at Deusto Business School. "In Spain, the idea of the general interest has been lost," he lamented. This concern and the idea that, despite living through the best moment that Humanity has ever experienced, fundamental values must be recovered and Human Rights must be defended in the face of technological advances were the main themes of his speech.
Sevilla acknowledged, in making this statement, that he was pissed off and going through a "Pessimistic stage, in the sense of being an informed optimist".. The main reason was that "this is not the society I fought for". In this sense, he shared with the audience the need he has felt, especially since the 2008 crisis, to "defend truisms" and the feeling he has that many things are being questioned "out of ignorance" and "to make what is there worse". He expressed his surprise at the fact that the rules themselves are being challenged, "even the legitimacy of a government to govern, and I am referring to both Pedro Sánchez's government and Rajoy's at the time".
The Chairman of Red Eléctrica de España made a well-argued defence of the 1978 Constitution, with the need for adjustments to something that "has been 40 years in the making", and he missed the political capacity of that era. "Understanding politics as the common place where problems are solved through rational debate".He said that "no one is right and everyone has a share".
He was quite concerned about this loss of the ability to solve problems through "agreements, pacts and dialogue", as he believes that failure to solve them "feeds populism and anti-system movements". In his opinion, this is happening not only in Spain, but in the Western world in general. The reasons are, according to his analysis, globalisation, which has brought "global problems without national solutions", and partitocracy, which prevents the necessary versatility to agree on solutions to issues that have to do with the general interest. In fact, he had to go back to 1992 to find the last major agreement that took place in the Spanish Parliament, the vote on the Maastricht Agreement.
Situations which, at election time, lead to high levels of abstention among the population, unfaithfulness to the parties they have always voted for and delaying the decision to vote until the election campaigns, "which is not exactly the best thing", he said. However, he opened a path to hope, concluding that he hoped that it was precisely the anger of the voters that would lead politicians "to negotiate, reach agreements and resolve the problems".
Prior to his current position at the head of Red Eléctrica de España, Jordi Sevilla has been Minister of Public Administration (2004-2007) and head of Economics of the Electoral Programme of the Socialist Candidate for the Presidency of the Government in two election campaigns, 2015 and 2016; Deputy for the province of Castellón in the Congress of Deputies; Spokesperson for Economics of the Socialist Group and Chairman of the Joint Committee on Climate Change (2000-2009). Between 2016 and 2018 he was Vice-President of the Spanish consultancy firm Llorente y Cuenca, specialising in reputation management, communication and public affairs and, previously, between 2009 and 2015, Senior Counselor at PriceWaterhouseCoopers. He has also been a lecturer at the Escuela de Organización Industrial and the Instituto de Empresa. Author of several books on economics and politics, the latest of which is 'Vetos, pinzas y errores: ¿Por qué no fue posible un gobierno del cambio?', he has published numerous articles in specialist journals and the daily press.
The Proa Communication Observatories
The Proa Observatories are stable discussion forums with the participation of prominent executives, politicians and professionals. They are born with the vocation of being a laboratory of ideas where a genuine dialogue is fostered to debate current business issues, as well as corporate reputation, brand and public affairs as important elements for the improvement of companies.
Among the personalities who have participated in these meetings are the economist Manuel Conthe; the former Minister of Education, Culture and Sport José Ignacio Wert; the writer and priest Pablo D'Ors; the Director of External Communication of Deloitte, Antonio Belmonte; the Director of Communication and Institutional Relations of El Corte Inglés, José Luis González-Besada; the High Commissioner for Marca España Carlos Espinosa de los Monteros; the writer and journalist Pilar Urbano; the general director of Información y Control de Publicaciones S.A. (OJD), Manuel Sala; the professor of Corporate Communication and Crisis Management at IESE Business School Yago de la Cierva; the director of Digital Innovation at Vocento, Borja Bergareche, and the president of Multinationals for Marca España, Chema Palomares, among others.