Brussels, 07/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - French finance minister Michel Sapin wants his Dutch counterpart, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, to be appointed for a new term as the chairman of Eurogroup.
Speaking in Brussels on Thursday 7 May, Sapin said that Dijsselbloem was an excellent chair of Eurogroup, confirming the social-democratic entente between France and the Netherlands.
Having left its financial problems behind, Spain, which was at a time supported by Germany, has been fighting for a long time to win the head of Eurogroup seat (see EUROPE 11279). It stresses that it has returned to good economic health with growth of 2.8% of GDP forecast by the European Commission for 2015, despite high unemployment of 22.4% of the working population and a public debt that will exceed the symbolic threshold of 100% of GDP this year. There will be a general election in Spain in the autumn and therefore uncertainty reigns as to the continuation of a Christian-Democrat-led government.
In early March, Dijsselbloem said that he would like to remain in his post when his current term of office comes to an end in June (see EUROPE 11270). One option for having a permanent head of Eurogroup would be to achieve this through reform of economic and monetary union (EMU). This would mean that the person chairing Eurogroup would no longer be a finance minister from one of the eurozone countries. Such a change would give the head of Eurogroup the ability to focus on the Greek question full-time. (Mathieu Bion)