With German official Claudia Buch now nominated by policymakers to lead the euro zone’s banking supervisor, the focus among officials is shifting to the five-way race to lead the Luxembourg-based European Investment Bank as both Spain and Italy vie to secure that role.
The rotating Belgian presidency of the EIB board of governors is expected to make a short update on the process, an EU diplomat said. Calvino herself promised not to discuss the issue with fellow ministers on the sidelines of the Santiago meeting and told reporters she’s taking nothing for granted. Even so, the apparent slowdown in the timetable for a job that will come due at exactly the same time as the banking role — with the retirement in January of Germany’s Werner Hoyer — shows that there’s no indication so far that the post is Calvino’s to lose, at a time when Spain has yet to form a government.
Vestager, who is part of the Danish delegation traveling to Santiago this weekend, is signaling confidence in her own chances, having stepped aside from her heavyweight role as the EU’s competition commissioner to pursue her own bid for the job. Czerwinska, a former Polish finance minister now at the EIB, would also advance the diversity cause, with the added opportunity to help fix the disproportionately low representation of Eastern Europeans at top level in the EU.It could take weeks for the impasse to resolve itself, not least as governments who will choose a new EIB chief in their capacity as its shareholders remain unresolved themselves.