Claudia Buch beats Margarita Delgado in the race to preside over the ECB Supervisory Board

2023-09-13 17:16:04

The Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) has supported this Wednesday the nomination of the German Claudia Buch to preside over the institution’s Single Banking Supervision Mechanism. Buch has finally prevailed over the Spanish candidate, Margarita Delgado, in the race to occupy the position, currently held by the Italian Andrea Enria.

The decision, despite everything, is not final. The until now vice president of the Bundersbank must appear before the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliament and then receive the support of the majority of the plenary session. Afterwards, she must obtain the support of the twenty-seven European capitals before taking office from January 1, 2024 for a non-extendable period of five years.

The presidency of the supervisory body of the ECB is one of the community positions that are distributed among the Member States – the so-called ‘top jobs’ -, among which there is also the presidency of the European Investment Bank (EIB) to which the First Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño. In fact, the election of Buch could be an exchange of chips between Spain and Germany, in order to achieve German support in the appointment of Calviño.

German influence in the ECB has also been key in Buch’s nomination, also preferred by the president of the institution, Christine Lagarde. Delgado, for her part, received the unanimous support of the Economic Affairs Committee of the European Parliament in June and the person in charge of it, the Italian Irene Tinagli, defended that she was the ideal candidate to occupy the position.