The Finance Ministers of the European Union prefer “not to force” the process to choose who will hold the presidency of the European Investment Bank (EIB) from 2024, a position chosen by the Spanish Nadia Calviño, in search of a candidate to obtain The maximum possible consensus between the capitals.
The decision, barring surprise, will not be made at the informal meeting held this Friday and Saturday in Santiago de Compostela and will be postponed to future meetings, among which the formal meeting that the finance ministers of the bloc will hold in Luxembourg in the middle of October.
“I think we don’t have to force the process. We are in a process of having informal consultations and trying to have a consensus candidate by the end of the process. I don’t think we are at that point yet,” explained the Belgian minister, Vincent Van Pethegem, who is responsible for managing the appointment of the person who will replace the German Werner Hoyer at the head of the EIB.
In addition to Calviño, the until now European Competition Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, the former Italian Finance Minister Daniele Franco and two vice presidents of the EIB, the Polish Teresa Czerwinska and the Swede Thomas Ostros, are all running for the position except the last one.
In the Belgian’s opinion, there are five “strong” candidates who can lead the EIB starting next January 1, but he insisted on leaving room for “formal consultations” to develop that will eventually culminate in the nomination of one of them when he obtains The support of at least 18 of the 27 countries that represent at least 68% of the bank’s capital.
In this context, it will be vital to obtain the support of at least Germany or France, since with Italy they are the largest shareholders of the EIB, but the ministers of both countries stated upon their arrival in the Galician capital that they have not decided on their vote.
“The German government has not made a decision yet,” said Christian Lindner, who nevertheless made it clear that the EIB must continue to have the highest credit rating in the future and also support climate action and the energy transition with its financing.
For his part, Frenchman Bruno Le Maire stressed that he will make his country’s position public “later”, without mentioning when, while waiting for Belgium to inform all ministers about the next steps in the process.
The Dutch Sigrid Kaag also preferred to wait for the Belgian Ministry’s management, who also stressed that “there has to be careful consideration and a transparent process that reaches a conclusion.”
In this context, the Spanish vice president, who has the public support of Portugal, insisted that she will not address the election process or the different candidacies with the ministers, since it would not be “appropriate” to the role of president of the meeting that will be held. celebrated, not only in Spain, but in his native Galicia.
In principle, the election of the German Claudia Buch to preside over the ECB supervisory board instead of the Spanish Margarita Delgado increases the chances of Calviño taking over the presidency of the EU public bank, which traditionally ensures that there is a geographical balance in its institutions that would have made it very difficult to elect two Spaniards to high economic positions.
The Spanish vice president, however, considered that “given the caliber of the competitors” for the position, “nothing can ever be taken for granted.”
Whoever is finally elected to replace the German Werner Hoyer will preside over the EIB from January 2024 for a renewable six-year term and will have a monthly salary of around 31,000 euros.
