Brussels, 30/12/2005 (Agence Europe) - The appointment of Mario Draghi as the new governor of the Bank of Italy on 29 December following the resignation of Antonio Fazio has been welcomed by the European Central Bank (Draghi will be on its board of governors) and the European Commission.
In Frankfurt, the President of the European Central Bank (ECB), Jean-Claude Trichet, warmly welcomed Mario Draghi and in a press release, the ECB pointed out that the new governor of the Bank of Italy has huge experience at home and abroad and would make a huge contribution to the work of the Governing Council.
At the European Commission, a spokesperson (Amadeu Altafaj Tardio) said that Mario Draghi had a solid, prestigious CV and huge European experience, and his appointment would enable things to get back to normal as quickly as possible. The spokesperson welcomed the speed with which the decision on the successor to Fazio had been taken (see EUROPE 9094 on Fazio's resignation following accusations of lack of impartiality in managing the take-over bid from Dutch bank ABN-Amro and Spanish bank BBVA for two Italian banks and the later criminal investigations into insider dealings, and EUROPE 9088 on the infringement proceedings launched against Italy by the European Commission).
Mario Draghi will be the ninth governor of the Bank of Italy with a six-year term of office that can be renewed only once (previously, the post was for life). Since 2001, Draghi has been the European Vice-President of merchant bank Goldman Sachs. Following five years at the World Bank, he was director general at the Italian Treasury from 1991 to 2001, under ministers Lamberto Dini and Carlo Azeglio Ciampi for example), during which time he was also a member of the EU's Monetary Committee. The negotiations over Fazio's successor were extremely lively, with former Italian prime minister and former Vice-Chair of the Convention that drew up the European Constitution, Giuliano Amato, turning down the job when it was offered to him in the final stages of the talks. (See other article on schedule of European Central Bank meetings in first half of 2006.)