Miguel Ángel Fernández Ordóñez (born 3 April 1945) is a Spanish

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this field there are ...

and

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking ...

, member of the Socialist Workers' Party and former Governor of the Bank of Spain. He is the younger brother of

Francisco Fernández Ordóñez Francisco Fernández Ordóñez (22 June 1930 – 7 August 1992) was a Spanish politician who was the minister of foreign affairs in the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) government of Felipe González from 1985 until shortly before his de ...

, also a Socialist politician, and he is married to Inés Alberdi.

Early life and education

Fernández Ordóñez was born in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

in 1945, he graduated in Law and Economic Science in the

Complutense University of Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid ( es, Universidad Complutense de Madrid; UCM, links=no, ''Universidad de Madrid'', ''Universidad Central de Madrid''; la, Universitas Complutensis Matritensis, links=no) is a public research university loc ...

. He belongs to the Cuerpo de Técnicos Comerciales and State Economists.

Career

Fernández Ordóñez served as secretary of State for the Economy, secretary of State for Commerce and Executive director of the

International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster glo ...

. In 1992 he was appointed president of the Court of Defense of the Competition. Between 1995 and 1999 he was president of the Commission of the National Electric System. Between 2004 and March 2006 he was secretary of state for Internal Revenue. On 10 March he was appointed Counsellor of the Bank of Spain and member of its Executive Commission.

Bank of Spain, 2006–2012

Cadena SER La Cadena SER (the SER Network) is Spain's premier radio network in terms of both seniority (it was created in 1924) and audience share (it had a regular listenership in 2018 of 4,139,000). The acronym SER stands for ''Sociedad Española de Radi ...

announced that Fernández Ordóñez would succeed Jaime Caruana as Governor of the Bank of Spain in July 2006 when Caruana finished his term. Minister of Economy and Finance

Pedro Solbes Pedro Solbes Mira (born 31 August 1942 in Pinoso, Alicante) is a Spanish economist. He was the president of FRIDE, Madrid-based think tank. Career While independent in the sense of not affiliated to any party, his various ministerial roles in ...

confirmed this decision on 21 June 2006. In response to the

Spanish property bubble The Spanish property bubble is the collapsed overshooting part of a long-term price increase of Spanish real estate prices. This long-term price increase has happened in various stages from 1985 up to 2008. The housing bubble can be clearly divi ...

, Fernández Ordoñez sounded the alarm in 2006, pleading with banks and mortgage lenders to rein in loans as the building bubble appeared ready to burst after house prices had risen by 150% in a decade. By 2008, he ordered a closer watch on the cashflow of banks. In May 2012, Fernández Ordoñez announced that he would step down on June 10, a month before the end of his six-year term, after government officials blamed him for the central bank’s failure to identify and warn earlier about the problems at

Bankia Bankia () was a Spanish financial services company that was formed in December 2010, consolidating the operations of seven regional savings banks, and was partially nationalized by the government of Spain in May 2012 due to the near collapse of ...

and other troubled institutions. Before the end of his term, he sought to defend his legacy before parliament, but the ruling party blocked his request. On 12 June 2012 he was replaced by Luis María Linde as governor of the Bank of Spain.

Later career

In 2017, Spain’s top court charged Fernández Ordoñez for failing to stop

from being listed on the stock exchange. He was later absolved of possible criminal acts in the case.

Other activities

European Central Bank The European Central Bank (ECB) is the prime component of the monetary Eurosystem and the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) as well as one of seven institutions of the European Union. It is one of the world's most important centr ...

(ECB), Ex-Officio Member of the

Governing Council A personal ordinariate for former Anglicanism, Anglicans, shortened as personal ordinariate or Anglican ordinariate,"...the liturgies approved for the Anglican ordinariates..." "Bishop Stephen Lopes of the Anglican Ordinariate of the Chair of St ...

(2006–2012)

Political positions

In 2018, Fernández Ordóñez came out in favour of a radical reform of the banking and monetary system. In several speeches and opinion pieces in Spanish media, he advocated for the introduction of a central bank digital currency in the Eurozone, a scheme under which citizens could have a current account directly at the central bank. Fernandez-Ordoñez thinks such system would make the financial system more stable and – paradoxically – less regulated (eg. it would make deposit guarantee schemes unnecessary):

digital money deposited in Central Banks does not need any protection from the State since their deposits are not “promises” to return money, rather they are simply money. Therefore, at no time would citizens run the risk of not being able to withdraw or transfer money from their deposits. The banking crises could no longer occur, with which citizens would stop suffering and paying the cost of these crises.

Sources

Note on the announcement of the appointment as Governor of the Bank of Spain

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fernandez Ordonez, Miguel Angel 1945 births Living people Spanish Socialist Workers' Party politicians Politicians from Madrid Complutense University of Madrid alumni Governors of the Bank of Spain