The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is scheduled to move next week his proposal on how to divide the main positions in the top leadership of the European Central Bank (ECB). In that reshuffle, he aims to bring in the former governor of the Bank of Spain, Pablo Hernández de Cos, while the heads of state and government of the European Union have set as a deadline the summit of 26 and 27 November in Brussels to close the deal.
"Our intention is to present the German proposal next week, but the talks about it have not yet been concluded. In fact, I still have to coordinate with the SPD over the weekend," Merz explained about the internal negotiations in the governing coalition, in comments to the press in Dublin, where he is taking part in an informal summit of EU leaders.
The leaders of the Twenty-Seven will meet again in two weeks at a formal European Council in Brussels, with the aim of sealing the transition of the current ECB president, Christine Lagarde. In that same negotiation, the allocation of other strategic roles in the institution will also be put on the table, including that of chief economist.
The head of the German government emphasized that the renewal of several seats on the ECB board is being "debated very intensely," although he warned that there still are "pending agreements" that still need to be concluded.
"In short, as I have said, the talks have not yet finished," Merz stressed after, in recent hours, various French and German media have reported that Paris and Berlin would be finalizing a pact that would allow the Spaniard De Cos to be placed at the head of the ECB over his competitor, the Dutchman Klaas Knot.
If that understanding is finally confirmed, the distribution of the next vacancies on the central bank’s board would also include the arrival of a French representative to the market operations portfolio, replacing Isabel Schnabel, while Germany would take on the post of chief economist that Philip Lane will leave free in May.
Among the names being mentioned in Germany for that chief economist position, Markus Brunnermeier and Tobias Adrian stand out, the former director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department of the IMF. At the same time, Laurence Boone, the former chief economist of the OECD and the current head of corporate and investment banking at Santander for France and Ireland, is among the favorites to take charge of supervision of market operations.
The European agenda has meant that Merz and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, have met Thursday and Friday in Dublin, on the occasion of two high-level meetings held in the Irish capital: first the meeting of the European Political Community and, next, an EU summit. Despite this double meeting of leaders, neither the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, nor the Dutch prime minister, Rob Jetten, has attended for reasons of domestic politics.