The acting president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, will face the elections on October 1 as the only candidate for the presidency of the employers' association. The deadline to register candidacies ended at midnight without any alternative list being submitted, according to sources from the business organization who spoke to Europa Press.
Since no other candidacies were registered, Garamendi will be proclaimed president of the CEOE on October 1 without the need to submit to a vote in the electoral assembly, in line with what is established in the Statutes of the confederation.
Since announcing in June that he would run for re-election, the Basque leader has been gaining support from a good part of the organizations integrated into the CEOE. Among them are the employers' associations of Madrid (CEIM), Catalonia (Foment), and the Basque Country (Confebask); the employers' association Confemetal; the self-employed of ATA, or Asedas, the employers' association of Mercadona and Lidl.
According to the sources consulted from the CEOE, the support that Garamendi has gathered goes "well beyond" the endorsements required to run in the internal elections, and he already has the support of a "very broad majority" of organizations, both territorial and sectoral.
Third consecutive term at the head of the employers' association
With his proclamation on October 1, Garamendi will begin his third term at the head of the CEOE. The Basque businessman first assumed the presidency of the employers' association in November 2018 and, four years later, renewed his position for another four years after obtaining 534 votes in the Electoral Assembly of the CEOE, compared to the 87 endorsements received by his then opponent, Virginia Guinda, a member of the Catalan employers' association Foment del Treball.
Born in Gexto (Bizkaia), Garamendi became the fifth president of the CEOE since its creation in 1977, succeeding Carlos Ferrer Salat, José María Cuevas, Gerardo Díaz Ferrán, and Juan Rosell.
During his current term, which began in November 2022, the CEOE approved the elimination of the limit of two terms that had been introduced at the time by Juan Rosell. This statutory modification is what has opened the door for Garamendi to run again and opt for a new period at the head of the employers' association in these internal elections.