The Government has invoked a legal exception to be able to appoint a new Director General of the Treasury and Financial Policy, Pablo Sánchez-Blanco, husband of the Secretary General of the PSOE of Madrid and number two of Óscar López, Pilar Sánchez Acera.
In this way, Sánchez-Blanco is exempted from the general rule that requires this position to be held by career civil servants belonging to subgroup A1, to which the Government’s chosen candidate does not belong. Although the Executive justifies the appointment due to Sánchez-Blanco’s high qualifications, he has been performing regulatory and legislative functions during the last three years as an advisor and lacks specialization in public debt markets. His wife was the one who leaked, as an advisor to Moncloa, the personal data of Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s boyfriend to Juan Lobato, then spokesperson of the Madrid Assembly.
The Executive has justified this decision by the professional profile that Sánchez-Blanco possesses to lead the Directorate General of the Treasury: “These are functions that require a transversal knowledge of the financial system and proven professional experience, but at the same time also a high degree of specialization and practical experience in specific areas of great technical complexity,” states Royal Decree 644/2026, of July 28.
However, none of the information in Sánchez Acera’s husband’s curriculum relates to public debt, but rather to regulation. Furthermore, his appointment comes at an especially turbulent time in the sector, due to bond volatility and rising yields. Sources close to the operation recall that he was a person who left the Bank of Spain “bounced” during Pablo Hernández de Cos’s time as governor and did not leave a good impression.
Pablo Sánchez-Blanco Mancera has held the position of expert in the Subdirectorate General of Financial Legislation of the Directorate General of the Treasury and Financial Policy since May 2023, where he has participated in the drafting and processing of provisions related to financial and credit institutions and the protection of financial service users.
During this period, he has represented Spain in the G20/OECD expert group on financial consumer protection (Task Force on Financial Consumer Protection) and has participated in the technical negotiation of the European banking package within the framework of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Previously, he developed almost his entire professional career at the Bank of Spain. Between May 2020 and April 2023, he was head of the Conduct Division in the Conduct Department of Entities, where he developed supervisory action programs aimed at the institution’s Senior Management and coordinated cross-cutting projects and the department’s data analysis team.
Previously, between October 2014 and April 2020, he was responsible for the Inspection Unit of the same department, where he designed and implemented the Bank of Spain’s conduct supervision framework, incorporating analysis tools based on machine learning, and participated in international forums and the European Banking Authority (EBA).
Between 2001 and 2014, he was a credit institution inspector in the Directorate General of Supervision of the Bank of Spain, where he was in charge of validating internal models (IRB), internal governance and remuneration issues, and on-site inspections of financial institutions. Earlier, he held a technical position in the Foreign Asset Management unit of the Bank of Spain and began his professional career in the private financial sector, at Caixabank, Ibercaja, and Argentaria Portugal.