Finance Minister Fernando Medina admitted on Friday that he had a “delicate” discussion about the appointment of the next Executive Director of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), a position former Minister João Leão is running, due to “different sensitivities” between countries. .
“We are going to debate within the Eurogroup between the different countries. It is a delicate issue from the point of view of the balance between the countries and the sensitivities about what the future of the MEE should be,” said Fernando Medina, speaking on arrival at the informal meeting of eurozone finance ministers in the Czech city of Prague.
After the vote on the leadership of the MEE was postponed twice due to a lack of consensus among euro countries, and given the need to obtain 80% of the votes cast, the Portuguese official acknowledged that this is “a process that appears to be difficult”.
“With two prestigious candidatures, but also with the permanence of blocs meaning that none of the candidates have managed to collect 80% of the votes so far […] weighted in terms of capital,” said Fernando Medina, emphasizing the need to “work and talk”.
Yet he repeated: “Portugal is always part of the solution and not the problem”.
The candidatures of former Portuguese finance minister João Leão and Luxembourg’s Pierre Gramegna for the position of executive director of the MEE are being discussed by eurozone finance ministers in Prague.
Eurozone finance ministers, gathered for an informal meeting in the Czech city of Prague, will try to reach a consensus on the two names on the table for a meeting of the Board of Governors of the ESM. the Mechanism’s leadership — João Leão and Pierre Gramegna –, one of whom will replace German Klaus Regling, who has been the Mechanism’s executive director since its inception in 2012, and will end his term on October 7.
If the vote is further postponed, the issue will be discussed again in the margins of the Eurogroup meeting in early October by the Governing Council of the MEE, the body’s highest decision-making body made up of government representatives from each of the mechanism’s 19 shareholders. , the euro countries, with the Finance portfolio. Portugal is represented by the responsible minister, Fernando Medina.
The follow-up in the MEE should take place from 8 October.
It is up to the euro finance ministers to take this decision by qualified majority vote, i.e. 80% of the votes cast, with the voting right equal to the number of shares allocated to each ESM Member State in the share capital. .
Portugal, for example, has a voting power of about 2.5%, compared to Germany (26.9%) and France (20.2%), the latter with a greater voting weight and veto power.
In order for a candidate to be elected Executive Director of the Mechanism, he must have the support of at least 80% of the votes of the MEE members.
The Executive Director of the MEE is responsible for conducting the work of the mechanism, acts as the legal representative of the organization and chairs the Board of Directors, for a term of five years, renewable only once.
The MEE, based in Luxembourg, is an intergovernmental organization established by the member states of the euro area to prevent and overcome financial crises and maintain long-term financial stability and prosperity, by providing loans and other types of financial assistance to countries in serious financial difficulties.
In the previous government, João Leão took on the Finance portfolio, after being State Secretary for the Budget, between 2015 and 2019.
Source: DN
