Following Jeroen Dijsselbloem's announcement that he will step down from the presidency of the Eurogroup in mid January, Luxembourg finance minister, Pierre Gramegna, stated on Tuesday 10 October that he is prepared to take over.
Gramegna stands for presidency
“If, at the end of the process, a consensus emerges, I would be prepared”, he told the newspaper Luxemburger Wort, following the Economic and Financial Affairs Council.
The Spanish finance minister, Luis De Guindos, on the other hand, has said that he will not stand for the presidency of the Eurogroup. In June 2015, however, he stood against Dijsselbloem, who was ultimately re-elected for two and a half years (see EUROPE 11329). The Austrian minister, Hans-Jörg Schelling, is reported to have said that his French counterpart, Bruno Le Maire, has thrown his hat into the ring, but Le Maire has yet to confirm this.
Ministers choosing to run for the presidency of the Eurogroup must declare two weeks before the Eurogroup meeting of Monday 4 December, the date on which the Nineteen will make their decision.
On Monday, the ministers approved Dijsselbloem's decision to remain in his position until the end of his term in January of next year, even though he is looking very unlikely to still be a minister in his own country after the end of October (see EUROPE 11879). The current Dutch minister has been tasked with holding discussions with the Council of the EU and the Commission on the practical details of a Eurogroup presidency with no ministerial portfolio.
“This situation is quite without precedent, having a Eurogroup president who is no longer a serving minister,” a European diplomat acknowledged. He called for the timetable to be respected, to avoid the mistake of “mixing up questions of positions with questions of substance”. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)