Eurogroup to elect new chief in December

World
Europe

Finance ministers of the 19-country Eurozone are scheduled to elect a new chief to chair the group at their December meeting, said outgoing Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem on Monday.

"Candidates can be put forward in the two weeks before the Eurogroup of December...and then, hopefully, in the January Eurogroup there will be a new chair," Dijsselbloem, also Dutch finance minister, told a press conference in Luxembourg following a Eurogroup meeting.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, photo from ‍La Tribune

Dijsselbloem's mandate as Eurogroup chief will last until January 13 next year.

"I have put to the colleagues in the Eurogroup today that it would be my intention to complete my mandate which runs until January 13," he told reporters.

"There was unanimous support for that, everyone was content with me staying on until mid-January," Dijsselbloem added.

The new Eurogroup chief's mandate would start in January 2018, but the election should take place at the end of the Eurogroup meeting in December, while candidates can be put forward in the two weeks before the December meeting.

The position of Eurogroup president usually falls on a sitting finance minister in the single currency zone.

Earlier at the Eurogroup meeting, finance ministers bid farewell to Wolfgang Schaeuble, the outgoing German finance minister who is slated to become speaker of the Bundestag in Germany's new government.

Wolfgang Schaeuble, photo from the Telegraph

Eurozone finance ministers deluged Schaeuble with farewell gifts on Monday, as the man who led austerity measures in Europe in answer to the debt crisis attended his last meeting with them.

Over eight years of financial turmoil in Europe, Schaeuble imposed Germany's tough-love solutions for countries hit by crisis, most famously Greece.

In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Schaueble warned against "new bubbles" that were threatening the global economy.

Source(s): AFP ,Xinhua News Agency