The person who will take over from Jeroen Dijsselbloem at the head of the Eurogroup will be the hot topic at the informal meeting of the Eurozone finance ministers, to precede a meeting in extended format of the finance ministers of 27 member states on Monday 4 December, at which only the United Kingdom will not be represented.
Those aspiring to take over the position officially threw their hats into the ring on Thursday 30 November (see EUROPE 11916). Although the European Socialists are insisting that it should be somebody from their political family to lead the Eurogroup over the next two and a half years, only two of their number, Mário Centeno (Portugal) and Peter Kažimír (Slovakia), have actually put themselves forward. The others, Dana Reizniece-Ozola (Latvia) and Pierre Gramegna (Luxembourg), are affiliated to the Green and Liberal parties of their countries respectively.
The future president of the Eurogroup will be elected by simple majority, following several rounds in which the candidates with the fewest votes will be eliminated. “I anticipate a relatively swift procedure of two or three rounds”, a senior diplomat said on Friday 1 December.
The Portuguese press is optimistic about the Portuguese minister's chances, as he can already count on at least eight votes from the countries of southern Europe, plus France and Germany.
In their letters of motivation, the four candidates broadly agree on the main priorities, such as the completion of Banking Union, an orderly exit from the third Greek bailout plan and the proper application of the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact. Reizniece-Ozola and Gramegna are also calling for more transparency in the way the Eurogroup operates and makes its decisions.
This election will precede that of the president of the Council's Eurogroup working group by a few weeks. The successor to Austrian diplomat Thomas Wieser will be selected by his or her peers on 11 January, before being sworn in by the Eurogroup at its next meeting of 22 January. At the moment, nobody has stepped forward to take over from Wieser, but candidates have until 8 December to make themselves known.
Greece. The Eurozone's financial decision-makers will also discuss the third monitoring mission of the third Greek bailout plan, which is to run until August 2018 (see EUROPE 11870). A mission made up of representatives of the institutional creditors of Greece (European Commission, ECB and ESM) is currently in Athens to note the Greek authorities' progress in setting structural reforms in place.
According to one European source, there are hopes that the parties will reach a very swift technical agreement. The Hellenic authorities are required to have set some of the reforms in place before the end of the year and the rest by mid-January. The aim is to reach a final political agreement in January at the Eurogroup, with a view to paying a tranche of aid in February.
The finance ministers of the Eurozone will also discuss the post-plan monitoring of Cyprus and Spain and the reimbursement of loans awarded to these two member states. The results achieved so far are encouraging, particularly concerning setting structural reforms in place and the budgetary trajectory (see EUROPE 11910).
Draft 2018 budgets. Still in the classic format, the 19 ministers will exchange observations concerning the draft national budgets submitted to the European Commission in October, and which have already been assessed by the institution (see EUROPE 11910).
Readers may recall that the Commission concluded that five member states - Belgium, Italy, Austria, Portugal and Slovenia - were at risk of failing to comply with the rules of the preventative arm of the Stability and Growth Pact. France, which has a deficit above 3% of GDP, is also targeted. The European institution furthermore recommends a budgetary orientation that is neutral at Eurozone level.
The Eurozone finance ministers will also hold an exchange of views on the taxation of employment in the member states.
Deepening EMU. Two days before the European Commission presents a package of proposals on the deepening of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), the finance ministers of 27 member states (all except the British minister) will continue discussions on the matter, which is connected to the completion of Banking Union (see EUROPE 11899).
In his state of the union speech, the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, announced the conversion of the ESM into a European Monetary Fund, a stabilisation function for the Eurozone countries facing macro-economic shocks and a Eurozone pre-accession instrument for countries wishing to join. There is also the question of creating a European finance minister.
Following this discussion, Dijsselbloem will submit a report to the heads of state or government at the Eurozone Summit to be held in Brussels on 15 December. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)