Finance ministers defer ECB board decision

EU finance ministers have postponed a decision on whom to appoint to the European Central Bank's (ECB's) executive board, amid tensions between the EU's large and small states.

The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, said last night after a meeting of the 12 euro-zone ministers that the decision would be made during an EU summit in Brussels later this month.

Mr Eugenio Domingo Solans, who is Spanish, will step down from the six-person executive board on May 31st. Mr Michael Tutty, the Irish vice-president of the European Investment Bank, is one of three candidates to succeed him, along with Belgium's Mr Peter Praet and Spain's Mr José Manuel Gonzalez-Paramo.

"Ministers will decide from among these three... by the time of the European council at the end of this month, on the basis of a detailed consideration by ministers of the suitability of the candidates proposed," Mr McCreevy said.

The Irish Presidency yesterday cast doubt on a deal apparently agreed in January that would allow Mr Solans' successor at the ECB to be chosen by qualified majority rather than by consensus. "One or two member-states have said since they didn't fully buy into the idea," a senior Presidency official said.

Mr McCreevy said last night that, although the decision would be made unanimously, the ministers had agreed "a methodology" to reach consensus.

When EU leaders nominated the first ECB executive board in May 1998, they stated that, in future appointments to the executive board, appropriate weight and consideration would be given, according to a balanced system of rotation, to recommendations for nationals of member-states not on the initial slate.

Mr McCreevy said he expected ministers to bear the 1998 statement in mind when they choose Mr Solans' successor. Ireland and Belgium are among four euro-zone countries that have yet to be represented on the board.

The euro-zone's biggest states are backing the Spanish candidate, however, in the hope of establishing the principle that the big countries should always be represented.

Choosing ECB appointments by qualified majority would give a major boost to the big countries' ambitions, leaving the eight smaller euro-zone member-states to take turns for just two seats on the board.

The big countries' plans have been thrown into confusion by last week's surprise decision by Mr Horst Köhler to resign as managing director of the IMF. The post is traditionally held by a European and the Spanish finance minister, Mr Rodrigo Rato, is among the possible candidates. A senior EU source said yesterday that it was unlikely that two nationals from the same member-state would get the ECB and the IMF jobs.