The European Parliament today voted through Germany’s Claudia Buch to become the EU’s next chief banking supervisor after a standoff with the European Central Bank.
In a plenary session in Strasbourg, MEPs voted 357 to 195, with 42 abstentions, in a secret ballot to support Buch’s candidacy to become the next chair of the European Central Bank’s Supervisory Board, a job overseeing the bloc’s biggest lenders.
Buch’s appointment would remove a hurdle for Spain’s Finance Minister Nadia Calviño to become the next head of the European Investment Bank.
Buch had been vying with Spain’s Margarita Delgado, deputy governor of the Bank of Spain, for the Supervisory Board post. Delgado was the unanimous choice of key lawmakers on Parliament’s economics committee. But appointing Buch clears the way for Calviño to the EIB since two Spaniards taking top finance jobs would have been difficult for other countries to swallow.
The ECB’s decision to nominate Buch provoked the ire of MEPs on the committee but they still backed Buch in a September vote to avoid an institutional spat with the ECB, because she is also viewed as qualified for the job.
The EIB is a bigger prize for Spain as it comes with EU money to spend and may be instrumental in rebuilding Ukraine in the years ahead. No decision has yet been taken on that position.
Buch, currently vice president of the Bundesbank, now needs sign-off from EU governments in the Council of the EU to formally take up the role.
The current chair, Italy’s Andrea Enria, hits a term limit at the end of the year.
