Steun voor kandidatuur Draghi in Europees Parlement (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Members of the European Parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee have backed Italian central bank governor Mario Draghi i to take over the reins at the European Central Bank this November when outgoing president Jean-Claude Trichet i is due to step down.
The decision by a large majority on Wednesday (15 June) paves the way for a vote by the full plenary of MEPs on the 23 June, coinciding with a European summit in Brussels where leaders are expected to give their final endorsement.
The draft summit conclusions, seen by EUobserver, say: "The European Council ... appointed Mr Mario Draghi President of the European Central Bank from 1 November 2011 to 31 October 2019."
In a two-hour hearing a day earlier, Draghi vigorously defended his candidature in front of questions from the euro-deputies, his direct style contrasting with Trichet's more diplomatic approach.
Greece, European economic governance and Draghi's former career in US investment bank Goldman Sachs were the main subjects, with MEPs keen to hear the Italian's views on the ongoing turmoil inside the eurozone i.
Striking a hawkish tone likely to go down well in Berlin, Draghi said fighting inflation should remain the ECB i's number one priority.
On Greece he stuck to the ECB line that any rescheduling of returns for private investors must be "entirely voluntary", as had been the case in 2009 for some central and eastern European countries.
"The cost of a real default will exceed the benefits and will not address the root causes ... we do not know what contagion effects it will have", said Draghi, denying that his position is driven by the ECB's own exposure to Greece.
The terms of a second package of financial aid for Athens have led to fraught discussion between eurozone states and EU institutions in recent days, aggravating tensions between Berlin and the Frankfurt-based EU bank.
Greece's current debt dilemma was less severe than the one faced by Italy in the 1990s, said Draghi. He added that as a former employee of Goldman Sachs, he played no role in the bank's provision of controversial currency swaps to Athens, perceived as enabling the government to hide the full extent of its debt.
"I acted with integrity and I am seen by unbiased people as having acted with integrity," he said.
On economic governance, the Italian central banker told MEPs they were right to press for more ambitious rules than the ones currently being supported by member states.
"We need more automaticity as parliament is rightly pushing for and more sanctions," he said. He argued that it was too early for eurobonds or a European finance minister, as some would like to see, however.
Afterwards Draghi told journalists that his "first experience of democratic accountability" was one of the "greatest learning experiences I have ever had".
The surprise exit form the ECB race earlier this year of Berlin's preferred candidate, Axel Weber, the then president of Germany's Bundesbank, was seen as opening the door to the Italian, whose southern European origins had been considered as a weak point in his application.