Garamendi, on his way to being the second longest-serving president of the CEOE
The board of directors of the employers' association will set the date of the elections this Wednesday
MadridAntonio Garamendi has done a Florentino Pérez. To the surprise of many, he has brought forward elections for the Spanish employers' association CEOE, which were due to be held at the end of this 2026 and will now take place in September or October. The move, announced this week, is reminiscent of what the president of Real Madrid did in May, when he announced early elections, which resulted in another term for Florentino at the helm of the white club. Will the president of the CEOE have the same luck?
Business sources consulted by ARA have no doubt: "The major employers' associations are aligned with him," these sources summarize. They refer to the Catalan and Madrid regional employers' associations – Foment del Treball and CEIM – but also to the sectoral employers' associations representing the large companies of the Ibex-35. For example, banking. "I have the support of the organizations and companies I need to have," Garamendi stated this week from Santander. It is thus confirmed that he will run again – in this case, the surprise has been ruled out.
Another matter is whether Antonio Garamendi will find a rival with a face and eyes. That is, an Enrique Riquelme like in the case of Real Madrid. "There is no nervousness," the same sources indicate regarding this possibility. Time, if that is the case, will begin to run this week: this Wednesday the CEOE's Board of Directors will meet to set the date for the elections (they must be called with at least three months' notice). Be that as it may, the feeling around the CEOE is that Garamendi is on his way to becoming the second longest-serving president of the Spanish employers' association, behind the historic José María Cuevas Salvador (1984 - 2007), and would surpass the Catalan Joan Rosell i Lastortras (2010-2018), who introduced the limit of two terms for the presidency of the CEOE and which Garamendi himself abolished three years ago. If he wins the elections, the current president would chain his third term with 2030 as the horizon.
From the CEOE, it is pointed out that the decision has been made to advance the elections due to the agenda in November. The first weekend, the Ibero-American business meeting organized by the same employers' association will be held within the framework of the XXX Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government, which will take place in Madrid on November 4 and 5. "The employers' association plays a very active role and we cannot do everything at the same time," indicate sources from the CEOE. They also point out that by calling them now, the different business organizations are given "the entire month of July" to prepare, taking into account that in August, during the summer period, it is more "difficult," they argue.
In any case, it has not gone unnoticed that the early election has occurred at the same time that it has become known that the Independent Authority for the Protection of the Informant (AIPI), an organization dependent on the Ministry of Justice, has granted the category of "protected informant" to the former member of the CEOE's board of directors and former vice-president of Cepyme, José Manuel de Riva Zorrilla, who filed a complaint against Garamendi for the development, precisely, of the elections for the employers' association representing small and medium-sized businesses within the CEOE in May 2025. That call was narrowly won by Ángela de Miguel, Garamendi's candidate, against Gerardo Cuerva, who was running for re-election. However, the results at Cepyme were interpreted as a rift within the CEOE, even more so than when the candidate from Foment del Treball, Virginia Guinda, ran for CEOE elections in 2022. The votes for Cuerva made it visible that a significant portion of voters, almost half, did not support Garamendi.
Garamendi himself, however, has downplayed the information about De Riva, recalling that the CEOE elections were already scheduled: "It was known they had to be held. It is the moment." In fact, there is no concern within the Spanish employers' association regarding a matter they consider a chapter of the past with no future. The intention is not to give fuel to the debate. In any case, Garamendi has indeed taken care to request a "clean campaign with positive approaches," where there is no "project that simply tries to tarnish colleagues".
"Relations with the CEOE are good and there is no tension of any kind," indicate Cepyme sources. Regarding the information about its former vice-president, they reiterate that it was "studied" at the time in Cepyme's Internal Regime Committee, of which he himself was part, and it was left "closed." "There is no internal tension of any kind," insist sources from this organization.
Flee from the "noise"
There are those who acknowledge that there may be "discontent" with Garamendi, but not organized enough to propose a "strong" alternative to the current president. It also cools down due to the political moment the State is going through. In fact, the CEOE elections will be held before entering fully into the last stretch of the political and economic year, marked, above all, by the corruption cases that plague Pedro Sánchez and the PSOE and with an increasingly tense Congress.
Furthermore, the Spanish employers' association has long criticized a deterioration of social dialogue and economic challenges such as "absenteeism" or "legal certainty". "The situation does not invite further trouble," indicates a business source. "We always think about the engine for companies, and therefore the best thing is stability and to go all in one direction," they defend from the CEOE.
