EU Finance Chiefs Set to Approve Schnabel’s ECB Bid in November

(Bloomberg) --

Eurogroup President Mario Centeno said German economist Isabel Schnabel is the only candidate for the recently opened vacancy on the European Central Bank’s Executive Board, paving the way for European Union finance chiefs to approve the appointment when they meet in Brussels on Nov. 7 and 8.

Centeno, who chairs the meetings of euro-area finance ministers, said no other country submitted a candidacy to replace Sabine Lautenschlaeger, who resigned from the board before the end of her term, without explaining the reasons. The deadline for submissions of names by the currency bloc’s member states expired on Thursday.

Ministers are expected to endorse Schnabel’s nomination in November, but the appointment won’t become official before EU leaders sign off when they meet in mid-December. The ECB and the European Parliament will be asked to weigh in, though their opinions aren’t binding.

The decisions require the backing of a supermajority of 14 out of the currency bloc’s 19 member states, representing at least 65% of the euro-area population.

The process is seen as a formality. At a press conference on Thursday after the ECB’s Governing Council meeting, President Mario Draghi praised the University of Bonn professor, who is also an economic adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration.

The six-person board proposes and implements monetary policy for the euro zone. Schnabel will be one of two women on the panel, along with incoming President Christine Lagarde, who assumes the helm of the central bank next week and who will decide which area of policy she should oversee.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nikos Chrysoloras in Brussels at nchrysoloras@bloomberg.net

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

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