Margarita Delgado, the current deputy governor of the Bank of Spain, was the most qualified for the position, the European Parliament has unanimously recognized this. However, in the elections for the positions of the ECB, other factors are also involved, such as power balances and geographical distributions, which have given victory to her rival, the German Claudia Buch, vice-president of the Bundesbank.
A decision that eases the way for Nadia Calviño to occupy the presidency of the European Investment Bank (EIB), an election that will be discussed this weekend by the European Ministers of Economy. Two Spanish women occupying both positions seemed difficult.
Yesterday, the replacement of the Italian Andrea Enria at the head of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (MUS), the body in charge of ensuring that the main banks of the euro zone comply with prudential requirements, detecting potential weak points and ensuring that be corrected And the decision fell in Germany's favor. The Governing Council of the ECB nominated Claudia Buch for a non-extendable five-year term at the head of this body that will start on January 1. The secret ballot gave Buch the majority.
Before that, the German will have to pass a hearing at the European Parliament's Economy Committee, and it may not be an easy procedure. It is the same parliament that had clearly opted for the Spanish language, and that expressed to Christine Lagarde orally and in writing its preference. The ECB's decision has not gone down well with parliamentarians. "It is not a matter of whether the candidate chosen by the ECB to govern the Supervisory Board is qualified or not for the position, but rather that the ECB has adopted this decision ignoring the recommendation of the European Parliament", protests the vice-president of the Economic Commission , Eva Potcheva, from Ciutadans, who sees "no reason" for the European Parliament to now change the direction of the vote regarding the recommendation in favor of Delgado. "If the candidate proposed by the ECB does not pass the parliament's vote, we will go back to square one to elect Andrea Enria's successor", warns Potcheva.
Parliamentary sources predict that the hearing with Claudia Buch promises to be hectic, but from here to exercising the right of veto there is a big difference.
It was in July when the European Parliament ranked the Spaniard as the most suitable for the position. After the hearings held with the two candidates, Delgado obtained the unanimous support of the coordinators of the Parliament's Economy Committee, something very unusual. It was thanks in large part to his extensive experience in the field of supervision.
Claudia Buch, with less knowledge of banking supervision, may also have been favored by the irruption of the candidacy of another Spanish woman, the first vice-president and Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño, for the presidency of the EIB, the financial arm of the EU. A candidacy that begins to be decided this weekend at the informal council of EU Economy Ministers in Santiago de Compostela. "The Spanish cannot take everything," European diplomatic sources pointed out these days, although the Ministry of Economy insists that they are different positions and that there should be no interference.
Calviño's candidacy for the EIB has as her main rival the Danish Margrethe Vestager, respected European Commissioner for Competition, although her performance has caused clashes with countries such as France that could now take their toll. The last episode was the opposition from Paris, with intervention even from the president himself, Emmanuel Macron, to his intention to appoint an American economist to a high position at the European Commission in the Department of Competition.
