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Vacancy on Lagarde’s Top Team at ECB Pits Slovenia Against Dutch

Vacancy on Lagarde’s Top Team at ECB Pits Slovenia Against Dutch

The race to fill a vacancy on the European Central Bank’s top team will now center on former Slovenian Governor Bostjan Jazbec and a Dutch supervisor, Frank Elderson.

Those two men were the only candidates put forward for the upcoming position on the Executive Board, according to a statement on Friday by Irish Finance Minister Pascal Donohoe, who chairs the group of euro-zone finance ministers. Despite the rare chance to achieve gender balance at the top of the ECB, no woman emerged as a contender.

Jazbec, 50, led Slovenia’s central bank for five years, but quit early amid controversy over a decision to wipe out investors in a 3.2 billion-euro ($3.8 billion) rescue of failing lenders. Elderson, also 50, serves on the board of the ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism in his capacity as an official at the Dutch central bank in that field.

Vacancy on Lagarde’s Top Team at ECB Pits Slovenia Against Dutch

Both will now vie for the post on the six-person board that opens in December when Luxembourg’s Yves Mersch reaches the end of his mandate. His is the last slot available until 2026, assuming current members all complete their eight-year terms.

With Slovenia jumping into the fray, the contest offers the first real opportunity for one of the newer members of the euro area, mostly from eastern Europe, to place a citizen on the ECB’s inner decision-making body. The Netherlands already provided the founding president of the Frankfurt-based institution, though it hasn’t had a board seat since.

Euro-area finance chiefs will discuss the upcoming vacancy at their Oct. 5 meeting, when they aim to select a candidate, according to Donohoe.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.