On the same day that the head of government declared the end of neoliberalism, Telefónica – 10% state-owned through SEPI – announced on the cover of Cinco Días an employment regulation filing that could impact … 6000 workers. There are paradoxes that write themselves. What the government sold as strategic industrial policy ended up looking more like classic cost adjustment, with all the ingredients of the evidence that Sanchez claimed to have beaten.
The state’s entry into Telefónica was justified by the rhetoric of technological sovereignty and the defense of strategic sectors. Then, SEPI and its allies, who were not few, forced a change in the presidency: José María Álvarez Ballete left, and Marc Mortra entered, a director linked to the executive branch, who was assigned to lead Indra. Now, just a few months later, a strategic plan arrives that cuts profits, lowers the company’s price, and distorts socialist rhetoric.
What’s happening at Telefónica? There are three possible explanations:
The first thesis: Mortra would have faced a critical situation inherited from the previous administration. According to this narrative, the staff cuts are nothing more than the bill for years of deferred decisions made by Álvarez-Baletti. It’s the classic argument of a new entrant who must take unpopular actions in order to “save” the company.
The second topic: The one who is married does not inherit, but rather has the inheritance. He applies in a matter of weeks what Pallett has used with a scalpel for many years to take care of price: workforce reduction, cost adjustment, and rationalization. But it does so without anesthesia, with immediate market effects and without the prudence required by a listed company.
Thesis Three: Mortra is not qualified to lead a company like Telefónica, but he has friends who support him in Moncloa. He lacks experience in managing large listed companies, does not understand business and does not know how to build a credible story for investors, and his strategic plan is seen as a sum of cuts without industrial vision or international ambition. The result: loss of value and lack of confidence in the stock market.
Whatever the correct hypothesis, there is an objective fact: Today Telefonica is worth less, its workers fear a massive reshuffle, and the country, along with a left-wing coalition, has entered the capital of a company that challenges its ideological narrative. If the goal was to defend a strategic company, then what the government did is reminiscent of what it used to criticize: entering as a shareholder and then supporting the cuts. The irony is uncomfortable. The government’s economic policy faces its own mirror, and what the image reflects is not specifically heresy, but a widely applied doctrine. jmuller@abc.es
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