Italy’s Panetta Poised to Join ECB’s Top Panel Succeeding Coeure

(Bloomberg) -- Italian central banker Fabio Panetta is poised to replace Benoit Coeure as one of the European Central Bank’s top policy makers.

The 60-year-old was the only name submitted for the post by Wednesday’s deadline, said Mario Centeno, who leads the group of euro-area finance ministers that will decide who joins the ECB’s six-member Executive Board. Panetta will most likely be endorsed on Oct. 10.

The appointment, which must also pass the scrutiny of the European Parliament before being signed off by European Union leaders, would restore Italy’s seat on the panel that designs and implements euro-area monetary policy as it pumps up stimulus to boost growth and inflation. The nation will be without such a post for the first time when President Mario Draghi steps down on Oct. 31.

French national Coeure’s term ends on Dec. 31, and tradition dictates that another country will be awarded the role because Draghi’s successor, Christine Lagarde, is French.

Panetta is currently director general of Bank of Italy. Starting in the research department in 1985, he went on to head the monetary policy and economics department, and has been in charge of the bank’s financial stability report.

He worked closely with Draghi when his compatriot was head of the Bank of Italy, as well as with the previous governor, Antonio Fazio, and the current one, Ignazio Visco. In that capacity, he sat in on Governing Council meetings from 2004 to 2017.

In 2014 he also became member of the ECB’s Supervisory Board, where he has been critical of the way Europe treated the country’s troubled lenders. In this role, he oversaw a string of crises at his country’s banks from Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA to Banca Carige SpA.

Panetta holds a PhD in Economics and Finance. He has also taught economics in Rome’s universities and published several books.

--With assistance from Nicholas Comfort, Viktoria Dendrinou and Samuel Dodge.

To contact the reporters on this story: Alessandro Speciale in Rome at aspeciale@bloomberg.net;John Follain in Rome at jfollain2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, Paul Gordon, Karl Maier

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