Gramegna, Leao tied for ESM top job after Italy bows out
Eurogroup finance ministers on Monday again failed to agree on naming the successor for Klaus Regling as chief of the European Stability Mechanism even after Italy withdrew the candidacy of European Commission official Marco Buti.
Neither the Luxembourg nor Portuguese candidate managed to win the required 80 percent majority in the vote that followed Italy’s withdrawal. Eurogroup president Paschal Donohoe said that the next vote now will take place in September. Regling is set to retire in October.
In Flux: A black Bloomsday
Luxembourg has witnessed that European integration still has its limits, even when war rages on Europe’s doorstep.
As world markets digested the Federal Reserve’s rate hike and the ECB’s emergency meeting, finance ministers of the 19 eurozone countries met at the EU conference centre on the Kirchberg plateau in Luxembourg and passed on an opportunity to further integrate financial services. Plans to complete Banking Union, first agreed in 2013, are now sent back to the drawing board.