Receive free updates from the European Investment Bank
we will send you myFT Daily Digest Email summary of latest information European Investment Bank There is news every morning.
Germany’s ruling coalition is divided over who to support in the battle for the future leadership of the EU’s largest bank, with EU finance ministers preparing to debate the issue on Saturday.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is backing Spanish Economy Minister Nadia Calvino to be the next president of the European Investment Bank, but Germany’s finance and economics minister is backing her Danish rival Margarethe, according to people familiar with the matter. Vestager.
The position of the European Investment Bank, the world’s largest multilateral financial institution responsible for overseeing a balance sheet of more than 500 billion euros, will become vacant on December 31 when Werner Hoyer steps down after two six-year terms. out. The post is one of the most important among the EU’s top jobs, hotly contested among member states and often decided through high-level political bargaining.
Finance ministers will hold a discussion on the European Investment Bank over breakfast in the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela and are not expected to formally discuss names but instead provide clues about who they support by making recommendations on the bank’s future strategy.
Scholz has worked closely with Calvino, both from center-left parties, over the past five years. He wants Germany to support her, but Robert Habeck, Germany’s deputy chancellor and leader of the Green party, and Christian Lindner, the finance minister and leader of the Free Democrats, prefer to back Denmark’s former European competition commissioner Liberal Vestager. Discussions were briefed.
Vestager met with Lindner, Habeck and Scholz’s chief of staff Wolfgang Schmidt in Berlin last week. The trip is part of a tour of European capitals aimed at boosting her standing in the European Investment Bank competition.
EU officials said Scholz’s support for Calvino prompted some smaller member states to offer her support and stressed there was no guarantee she would remain the favourite. Germany is one of the three largest shareholders of the European Investment Bank, along with France and Italy.
As competition commissioner, Vestager in 2019 blocked a 15 billion euro rail deal between France’s Alstom and Germany’s Siemens, angering Berlin and Paris. Paris has not announced who it will support in the EIB race, but officials say it favors Calvino.
Calvino’s candidacy received a new boost this week when Spain’s candidate to chair the Single Supervisory Mechanism, the euro zone’s top financial regulator, lost to Bundesbank Deputy Governor Claudia Buch.
Likewise, euro zone ministers’ decision on Friday to back Italy’s Piero Cipollone as a member of the European Central Bank’s executive board was seen as undermining Rome-based European Investment Bank candidate and former finance minister Daniel Franco. Daniele Franco’s approval rating.
Spain holds the rotating EU presidency, meaning Calvino will chair the two-day meeting. Officials familiar with the plan said she would recuse herself from the breakfast debate, which will be overseen by Belgium’s finance minister.
The finance minister, who is also president of the European Investment Bank, is not expected to reach consensus on Calvino, Vestager or Franco on Saturday, especially since many countries are unclear about whom they will ultimately support.
Lindner said on the eve of the meeting that the German government had not yet decided who to support for the EIB post. But he said ministers had a “clear understanding” of the bank’s vision.
Berlin wants to ensure the European Investment Bank maintains its AAA rating, saying “a sound banking sector is crucial to us” and supporting its efforts to finance green investment, projects in Africa and the reconstruction of Ukraine. But he stressed that its mission “cannot be overstretched.”
He also said the bank’s governance could be improved, adding that “processes need to be more agile”.
Calvino traveled to India over the weekend for the G20 leaders’ summit to make her case to other EU representatives in attendance. She said Friday it would be inappropriate for her to use the Santiago meeting to promote her bid because she is hosting colleagues from the city, including a private tour of the city’s famed cathedral and a lavish dinner on Saturday night.
“I’m not going to discuss it with the finance ministers who are here… the ongoing competition and the different candidates at the European Investment Bank,” she told reporters on Friday.
Officials said this echoed a request made privately by Denmark ahead of the meeting. Vestager and Franco also attended the meeting in Spain to present their views to ministers.
Ministers will next meet in October, where a decision is likely to be taken.
Svlook
