On Friday 27 June, the Irish, Spanish and Lithuanian finance ministers officially submitted their candidatures for the presidency of the Eurogroup, the informal body that brings together the euro area’s finance ministers.
In their candidacy letters to their counterparts, Ireland’s Paschal Donohoe, Spain’s Carlos Cuerpo and Lithuania’s Rimantas Šadžius all stress the importance of the Eurogroup for: - facilitating the coordination of budgetary and economic policies within the euro area; - giving fresh impetus to the banking union, following the provisional interinstitutional agreement on the ‘CMDI’ bank crisis management package (see EUROPE 13668/10); - providing guidance on how to further integrate capital markets (CMU); - strengthening the international role of the single currency, in particular by deploying a digital euro.
As President completing his second two-and-a-half-year term, Mr Donohoe recalls how the euro area countries have managed to tackle various crises, citing the Covid-19 pandemic and the inflation crisis caused by Russian aggression in Ukraine, and to emerge “stronger”. In his view, in the eyes of international partners, the euro area is “a source of predictability, stability and transparency”. He also considers it necessary to update the ‘roadmaps’ on banking union and the CMU project.
See Mr Donohoe’s letter: https://aeur.eu/f/hlz
Having steered the reform of the Stability and Growth Pact at the end of 2023 in the Council, Mr Cuerpo highlights the initiative he launched with six other counterparts to set up a European label for existing savings products that finance investments made in the European Economic Area (see EUROPE 13654/20). The Spanish minister is also a signatory of the letter from the five largest economies in the euro area setting out ideas for improving the functioning of the Eurogroup (see EUROPE 13663/4).
See Mr Cuerpo’s letter: https://aeur.eu/f/hm0
Having steered his country’s transition to the euro in 2015, Rimantas Šadžius assures that values such as integrity, transparency and collegiality will guide his actions if he is elected on Monday 7 July. In particular, he highlights the proposed 28th regime to deepen the internal market in financial services. “It is crucial to enhance access to finance for businesses and better returns for citizens (...) including for riskier innovative activities”, he adds. Judging progress on banking union to be “rather slow”, he recommends that, following the agreement on the ‘CMDI’ package, discussions should be resumed to identify areas where progress is possible.
See the letter from Mr Šadžius: https://aeur.eu/f/hm1
The election will take place by a simple majority of Member States. If no candidate obtains at least 11 out of 20 votes in the first round, they will be informed of their performance and can decide whether or not to continue their candidacy.
Since 1997, the Eurogroup has been chaired by Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker, the Netherlands’ Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Portugal’s Mário Centeno and Ireland’s Paschal Donohoe, with the latter being in office since July 2020 (see EUROPE 12524/1). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)