Germany has acknowledged that France will pick a successor to Mr Wim Duisenberg as president of the European Central Bank after the Dutchman steps down in July next year.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told reporters that Berlin and Paris would discuss who should succeed Mr Duisenberg, but he saw no rush to decide.
"We have time to discuss this, but of course there will be very close cooperation between Germany and France, like in all questions," he said, declining to answer a question about whether Paris and Berlin had already agreed on a successor.
Bank of France Governor Jean-Claude Trichet has long been France's top candidate but there is doubt over whether he can take the ECB job before he is cleared over his role in the near-demise of the Credit Lyonnais bank in the early 1990s.
Mr Duisenberg has said he would step down on his 68th birthday on July 9, 2003, three years before his term ends. He said it was a personal decision, but had decided to announce his resignation early to avoid the speculation and uncertainty that could harm the image of the ECB and the euro single currency.
Schroeder's main spokesman Uwe-Karsten Heye told a news conference that EU leaders had agreed in 1998 that it was up to France to pick the next ECB president: "It's a matter for the French government to decide on a suitable candidate," he said. Heye's acknowledgment of such an agreement is important because previously only France had confirmed its existence.
Duisenberg and most of the EU never confirmed such a deal, which many analysts saw as a birth-defect of the ECB because it raised questions over its independence.