Emmanuel Macron is seeking to increase France’s economic clout within the EU by securing top jobs for his compatriots, as the officials who steered the eurozone through the financial crisis depart the scene, reports The Irish Times.
Paris has put down markers for two key jobs co-ordinating the eurogroup of finance ministers while campaigning for the creation of a post of eurozone finance minister – all part of Mr Macron’s push to reassert France’s economic policymaking role after years of subservience to Germany.
His government has let it be known that it might seek to install Bruno Le Maire, finance minister, as head of the eurogroup to replace Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch Labour politician who is leaving the post after his party was battered in March elections.
France has also made clear its desire to head another body, known as the eurogroup working group, which prepares the ministers’ meetings. While Paris cannot hope to land that job and the eurogroup presidency at the same time, it is broadcasting its interest in both in the hope of securing one of them.
But success for Mr Macron’s lobbying drive is far from guaranteed, with the eurozone divided between German-led countries that stress the need for fiscal discipline, and more southern states, including France, that want greater sharing of risks.
“This personnel battle is a proxy for the policy battle to come,” said Janis Emmanouilidis, director of studies at the European Policy Centre think tank in Brussels. “The German-Dutch-Finnish camp distrusts the other camp, but there’s even distrust within the camps.”
The two new eurozone appointments, which will have to be made by January, are part of a far broader process of renewal that will culminate in 2019 with the nomination of a president of the European Central Bank to replace Mario Draghi and a new European Commission to take office that year.
“There’s a sudden abundance of riches coming up, giving people various choices to make,” said a senior European diplomat.
Other important EU economic posts to be filled include those of Vítor Constâncio, the Portuguese vice-president of the ECB, who leaves in May and whose role Spain covets, and two other members of the ECB’s executive board – Benoît Cœuré of France, and Peter Praet of Belgium, the bank’s chief economist – who depart in 2019.
While Angela Merkel’s government would like Jens Weidmann, the president of the Bundesbank, to take over from Mr Draghi and become the first German chief of the ECB, some Berlin officials say he is unlikely to get the job, since he has been at odds with the bank over its landmark policy of quantitative easing.
Berlin is also distracted by the prospect of next month’s general election – a vacuum French officials seek to fill by lobbying in Brussels.