FRANKFURT (MNI) – The chances that Bank of Italy Governor Mario
Draghi will get the top job at the ECB are “diminishing”, the German
weekly Die Zeit reported Wednesday.
Citing high-ranking monetary authorities in Germany and France, the
newspaper said it was “unlikely” that Draghi would get the nod to
succeed ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet at the end of his term in
October.
A few northern European states oppose the Italian for the top
position, the paper said. Although Draghi’s qualifications are not
questioned, Germany is at present opposed to seeing a southern European
in the top job.
Nevertheless, a final decision has not been taken, the paper
reported. This is not expected before May or June, it added.
Weaker odds for Draghi would, of course, boost the chances of
German Bundesbank president Axel Weber, long considered the favorite, to
secure the position. Yet Weber has encountered opposition due to his
hawkish stance on monetary policy and his opposition to the ECB’s
program of buying government bonds.
Die Zeit said that France might conceivably reconsider its
opposition to Weber if it could nominate a Frenchman as the ECB’s chief
economist. The German Juergen Stark, who now holds this post, would then
have to step down if Weber took the ECB’s helm.
Though no formal rule forbids having two people from the same
country on the ECB’s six-member Executive Board, this has been avoided
since the Board was constituted in 1998.
Among other compromise candidates in the running, the newspaper
cited Finland’s Central Bank chief Erkki Liikanen, Luxembourg’s Yves
Mersch and the head of the European Financial Stability Facility, Klaus
Regling, a former German Finance Ministry official.
–Frankfurt bureau, +49-69-720142, tbuell@marketnews.com
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