The struggle to replace the German Isabel Schnabel on the Executive Committee of the European Central Bank (ECB) is already underway, and the member states have begun to make moves to ensure their representation in the decision-making body. At the same time, Berlin is trying to avoid giving up the influential Market Operations portfolio that Schnabel has held until now.
In this context, Germany plans to propose a candidate before the deadline set by the Eurogroup, October 28, with the aim of preserving the powers linked to Schnabel's position, according to sources familiar with the process cited by the Bloomberg agency.
The German Finance Minister, Lars Klingbeil, has already informed his colleagues that he would try to have another German national take the position during the last Eurogroup meeting, held this Thursday in Luxembourg.
At that meeting, the Eurogroup formally activated the procedure to choose Isabel Schnabel's successor on the ECB Executive Committee and set October 28 as the deadline for eurozone countries to present their candidates.
Although the president of the Eurogroup, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, finance minister in Greece, avoided guaranteeing that the appointment could be finalized ahead of the next meeting of the eurozone economy and finance ministers, scheduled for November 9, he was relatively optimistic.
"I hope that the selection takes place at the November meeting," he stated, also emphasizing that the start of the procedure took "very little time" on the agenda of this Thursday's meeting.
Schnabel's decision to leave the ECB early on January 4 to take up a senior position at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has triggered the renewal process at the top of the central bank.
In the coming months, three of the six members of the ECB Executive Committee will leave their positions, including the role of president Christine Lagarde, so Schnabel's replacement is part of a broader negotiation that transcends her own seat.
Another position that will become vacant is that of chief economist, currently held by the Irish Philip Lane, whose term ends on May 31.
If Berlin formalizes its strategy, the German Executive would give up competing for the presidency of the ECB, which would remove Joachim Nagel, the current head of the Bundesbank, from the race and pave the way for the two main candidates for "guardian of the euro": the former governor of the Bank of Spain and now general director of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Pablo Hernández de Cos, and the former governor of the Dutch central bank Klass Knot.