Today the Eurogroup decided to nominate Fabio Panetta to succeed Benoît Coeuré as a member of the ECB Executive Board. Following the departure of Mrs Lautenschläger, there would now be five men and only one woman (Christine Lagarde) on the Executive Board, and 24 men and only one woman on the Governing Council.
MEP Sven Giegold, financial and economic policy spokesperson of the Greens/EFA group commented:
“The nomination of Fabio Panetta as successor of Benoît Coeuré on the Executive Board of the ECB is an affront to the European Parliament. When calling for gender balanced shortlists, Parliament has declared that in future it will ignore any men-only nomination. The finance ministers acted as if nothing had happened. The European Parliament cannot simply accept this decision. We call on all political groups to stop ridiculing themselves and seek the institutional conflict. Parliament must now examine the nomination of Panetta thoroughly. Parliament’s opinion on Panetta must be accompanied by a change in the Eurogroup’s nomination policy. After Sabine Lautenschläger’s departure, Christine Lagarde would now be the only woman in the ECB’s leading body.
If Panetta wants to take up a leading position at the ECB, he must overcome his national views on the banking union. In the past, Panetta has declared the European banking rules as unsuitable for Italian banks and criticised the bail-in of shareholders and creditors in bank bailouts. The European Central Bank needs real Europeans at its helm.”
Picture: wikimedia