The election of the new president of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) of the European Central Bank – the only two candidates are women, the Spanish Margarita Delgado and the German Claudia Buch – threatens to provoke a strong institutional clash between the Frankfurt-based institution and the European Parliament.
The European Parliament has expressed to the president of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, first orally and then by letter, its clear preference for Delgado, current deputy governor of the Bank of Spain, for the position, over which MEPs have veto power. The message, however, has not been transmitted to the body that will make a decision on the matter next Thursday, the Governing Council of the central issuer, as published this week by the Bloomberg financial agency. Several parliamentary sources confirm this unusual situation, “maneuvers” that they attribute to Lagarde's personal preference for Buch, vice president of the Bundesbank.
In July, after listening to and questioning, behind closed doors, the two candidates for the position, the MEPs of the Economic Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (ECON) decided by consensus to recommend Delgado's appointment to the ECB. Although Buch is also considered a very solid candidate, the long experience of the Spanish in the field of banking supervision achieved what rarely happens in these cases, the unanimity of the political groups. Even the spokesman for the European People's Party, the German Markus Ferber, a member of the Bavarian CSU, favored Delgado.
“The members of the Governing Council of the ECB know this because it was published in the international press this summer,” but not through Lagarde. “When the deputies of the Economic Affairs Committee issue an opinion, it is not a personal letter to the president. She has to distribute it to the body that is going to make the decision, and Parliament hopes that it will do so and be taken into consideration,” says the vice president of the ECON commission, Eva Poptcheva (Ciudadanos). “What is happening is an anomaly in interinstitutional relations that the European Parliament cannot accept,” she concludes.
Andrea Enria's mandate as head of the MUS ends at the end of the year. According to the rules of the institution, although it is the ECB that proposes a candidate for the position, the European Parliament must ratify it, hence, to avoid clashes or disagreements, before Frankfurt presents a name, the MEPs hold confidential hearings to the applicants and transmit their conclusions.
In this case, the consensus around Delgado, who has dedicated his career to the banking supervision sector, was total and this was made known to the ECB. Lagarde, however, has a different opinion and, according to diplomatic sources, is betting on Buch's “technical capacity and leadership capacity.” Other sources suggest a possible maneuver to place a person of German nationality in the MUS with a view to closing the passage to Berlin when the French woman's mandate expires in 2027.
If the bank's governing council proposes her as a candidate, the European Parliament would have to choose between reaffirming its choice and defending its prerogatives by exercising its right to veto or, on the contrary, accepting the candidate from Frankfurt, even if she were not its favorite. Buch's solid professional profile could end up softening the European Parliament, but the costs of this potential clash, according to parliamentary and diplomatic sources, worry some countries, but it is not clear what the relationship of forces is within the ECB, which plans choose between the two candidates next Thursday.
The high presence of Spaniards at the top of international financial institutions (José Manuel Campa in the European Banking Authority; Fernando Restoy presides over the Financial Stability Institute of the Bank for International Settlements and Pablo Hernández de Cos presides over the Basel Committee) is another factor that can play against Delgado. And, although they are not formally related, the coincidence of the vote on the SSM with the negotiations on the replacement of the European Investment Bank, to whose presidency Nadia Calviño aspires, adds one more complication on their path to Frankfurt.
