Brussels, 23/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday, the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Committee supported the nomination by a show of hands for Lucas Papademos, Governor of the Central Bank of Greece, for the position of Vice President of the European Central Bank. Christian Noyer will be replaced at on 1 June. The plenary is expected to vote on this recommendation on 14 May in Strasbourg (see EUROPE yesterday page 7 and 15-16 April page 8).
During the hearing, Lucas Papademos replied to a number of questions on:
The collective responsibility in decision-making. British Conservative, John Purvis, said that that as expected, they had not detected any kind of critical position on the part of Mr Papademos to the Bank. Mr Purvis also wanted to know if the Greek central banker really agreed with ECB policies. Mr Papademos explained that he supported ECB policies on the basis of his personal assessment of these policies and also because as a Member of the Board of Governors, he had supported the decisions that he himself had made and contributed. British Liberal Democrat, Chris Huhne asked whether the principle of collective responsibility at the ECB went too far. He noted that their credibility had increased spectacularly at the time of the worst fight to be witnessed, which showed that these people were serious. Mr Papademos pointed out that discussions between them were "very open" and he did not believe that decisions arrived at through consensus has a negative impact on decision-making.
Clarity and ECB Communications. Mr Papdemos admitted that the Bank ought to use a language that people could understand in order for the to be able to understand what they were doing. He apologised for using a, "central bank jargon" in his introduction. Addressing CDU politician, Hans-Peter Mayer, who had been calling on the ECB to regularly distribute information to the general public in a language that they could understand, Mr Papademos explained that he himself was, however, capable of using an "alternative" language for getting the message across to the "average citizen" interested in these issues.
Relations with Bank personnel. Replying to Ieke van den Burg (Dutch Christian Democrat), Mr Papademos stated that he want dialogue to be as open as possible. He also pointed out that the Bank's Personnel Committee only had a consultative role and that he would not say that he was ready to negotiate with the unions but that he was one of the few central bankers that had had to personally negotiate with the unions in their country. Ms van den Burg noted that the quantity of Euros printed would be reduced over time and was worried by the fate of staff in companies that had printed the Euros. Mr Papdemos replied that there were no important changes that could effect the staff in the immediate future.
Women at the ECB. British Labour MEP, Peter Michael Skinner criticised that fact that there was only one woman on the Bank's Board of Governors, the Finn, Sirkka Hämmäläinen and that there were few women in the staff at the ECB. Mr Papademos acknowledged this, while indicating that it wasn't the result of discrimination. He cited the example of the USA where the number of women in similar institutions in the 1960s was very low but which later changed considerably.