The head of the Bundesbank, Axel Weber, emerges as slight favourite to become the ECB’s next chief
CYNICS have a rule about European appointments: the most qualified contenders never get them. This week’s decision by the Eurogroup of euro-area finance ministers to nominate Vitor Constancio as the next vice-president of the European Central Bank (ECB) certainly looks like a stitch-up. Luxembourg’s prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs the Eurogroup, moaned that there had been no discussion of the merits of each candidate. The spurned included the head of Luxembourg’s central bank, Yves Mersch.
The biggest winner from this contest may not be Mr Constancio but Axel Weber, the president of Germany’s Bundesbank. Mr Constancio, who is head of Portugal’s central bank, got the nod largely because of what he is not. An inflation hardliner from one of the euro zone’s “core” countries, such as Mr Mersch, would make it trickier for Germany to get its man into the ECB’s top job when Jean-Claude Trichet steps down next year. Mr Weber is its as- yet-undeclared candidate. ...