German CDU Industry Lobby Champions Weidmann in ECB Chief Race
German CDU Industry Lobby Champions Weidmann in ECB Chief Race
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Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann can count on the firm support of a business lobby affiliated to Germany’s ruling Christian Democrats for his bid to succeed European Central Bank President Mario Draghi later this year.
“We make no secret of the fact that, for us, Jens Weidmann would be the right person to lead the ECB,” Werner Bahlsen, the president of the CDU Economic Council, said at a news conference in Berlin Tuesday.
More than three quarters of the members of the council, which represents around 12,000 small and medium-size companies as well as some larger firms, supports Weidmann’s policy stance, according to the latest edition of an annual survey published Tuesday. Only 39% have faith in the ECB’s monetary policy, the survey showed.
That disconnect highlights the challenge facing Weidmann, a member of the ECB’s Governing Council, if he is to succeed Draghi when the Italian retires at the end of October. Frugal Germans have long complained about the ECB’s policy of negative interest rates, and Weidmann went to court to challenge Draghi’s 2012 pledge to buy bonds that is credited with saving the euro at the height of the debt crisis. That opposition could make him unpalatable to some euro-region governments.
European Union leaders are gathering in Brussels on Tuesday to begin negotiations on who will run the bloc’s main institutions, including the ECB. Other contenders to succeed Draghi include Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau, his Finnish counterpart Olli Rehn and ECB Executive Board member Benoit Coeure, another Frenchman.
To contact the reporter on this story: Piotr Skolimowski in Frankfurt at pskolimowski@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Fergal O'Brien at fobrien@bloomberg.net, Iain Rogers
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