After the approval with BBVA OPA conditions on Banco Sabadell by the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC), pressures from the government have begun to seek a justification for rejection. Thus, the second vice president of the Government and minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, has opened the ban today and has officialized her “no” to the operation, demanding to paralyze it in the Council of Ministers.
Speaking to TVE, Díaz has described the decision of competence as a “very bad news” because what he does is “further reinforce the financial oligopoly that exists in Spain and sharpen the systemic risk of which the European Commission has already warned.”
Then he has called to the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, to put “on the side of the common good”, considering that he will have “a very negative affectation to employment, to public services and the economic situation of Spain.” Specifically, it has listed the harmful effects that according to the minister will cause this operation: “5,000 layoffs, financial exclusion in many territories and damage to customers, self -employed and SMEs, which are going to be more expected credits.” And he has launched a new chanting glove against entrepreneurs: “Let’s see what the employer of this says.”
The vice president has repeatedly reiterated the danger of the systemic risks of excessive banking concentration that can produce and denounced that “more and more areas of Spain run out of bank branches”, so it has said that you have to stop this type of operations.
The Commission considered yesterday that the presentation commitments by BBVA in case its purchase offer on Sabadell is “adequate, sufficient and provided” to solve the problems that this concentration supposes for the competition. For this reason, the operation authorized yesterday once the investigation in the second phase has been completed, so it now leaves the final resolution in the hands of the Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, so that he decides if he proceeds to raise it to the Council of Ministers that, where appropriate, may assess the operation according to criteria of general interest.
