ECB breekt door nieuwe aanstelling met pro-Duitse traditie (en)
BRUSSELS - European Central Bank (ECB i) chief Mario Draghi i has appointed former Belgian national bank boss Peter Praet as his chief economist, a job coveted by both Paris and Berlin.
The post will be filled by a non-German for the first time in the bank's 13 year-old-history. It was previously filled by Juergen Stark, who resigned in September due to his opposition to the ECB's bond purchasing programme, which helped Italy and Spain lower borrowing costs.
Germany also failed to secure the apppointment of one of its nationals at the helm of the bank itself after its candidate, Bundesbank chief Axel Weber, stepped out of the race for similar reasons to Stark.
Berlin had originally put forward 45-year-old Joerg Asmussen, an ECB board member and a German finance ministry official who has served under both Social Democrat and Christian Democrat ministers, for the ECB chief economist job. Meanwhile, Paris angled for its treasury man and ECB board member, Benoit Coeure, to get the appointment.
Under the new division of labour, Asmussen and Coeure will stay on the board but will get bigger portfolios to the detriment of their Portuguese and Spanish colleagues.
Asmussen will second Draghi at all eurozone summits and meetings of EU finance ministers - something no other ECB director ever did before - as well as represent the bank in relations with international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund or the G20. He will head the increasingly important legal department and he will take over supervision of the ECB's headquarters in Frankfurt.
Portugal's Vitor Constancio looked after the headquarters in the past. He will now deal with any remaining administrative chores and oversee payment systems.
Coeure will from 1 March take over the markets division, giving him direct control of ECB bond purchases.
The job was previously done by Spain's Jose Manuel Gonzalez-Paramo, who will be left with statistics and research instead.
For his part, Praet, the 62-year-old Belgian academic and former central banker who carried off the chief economist post, will oversee the economic forecasting on which the ECB bases its interest rate decisions.
German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble told media in Berlin on Tuesday: "The new division of tasks in the ECB board is a balanced decision. The ECB is well-equipped on the personnel front for the looming challenges." Asmussen said he was "satisfied" with the decision.
One German observer criticised Coeure's appointment as head of the bond purchasing program, however.
"France has a strong interest in this and Coeure does not come from a strong independent central bank, but directly from the French ministry of finance," German Green MEP Sven Giegold told this website.
"The ECB has purchased bonds of some member states, of some banks, but not others. Putting a former French official in charge of this program raises even more questions. The European Parliament has repeatedly asked for full transparency as there are suspicions that some countries may have profited more and now it's high time for the ECB to publish what it buys, from whom and at what price."
Giegold added that it was a "reasonable decision" not to make Asmussen chief economist because he "does not have a strong academic background, no publications - just because you are German doesn't make you a top level economist."
"Praet has a PhD in economics, has served as chief economist in top financial institutions - so he is more able to address the academic community on economic issues. But Asmussen can be quite happy. His strength is that he was the key person representing Germany in international fora - G20, G8, EU - so he is well suited to continue to go to these fora and I praise Draghi for taking him for this position."
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