Madrid (AFP)
The Spanish government announced Friday the withdrawal of the candidacy of its Minister of the Economy Nadia Calvino to the direction of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for which a vote of the European governments is expected Friday.
"Spain is always ready to promote consensus among the countries of the European Union to choose a joint candidacy for the leadership of the International Monetary Fund.
For this, we announce that the government is betting on a European agreement, without the Minister of Economy Nadia Calvino participates in the next phase, "the government wrote in a message to the press.
The Portuguese government has also withdrawn its candidate, Mario Centeno, it remains only three applicants: the former president of the Eurogroup, the Dutch Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the governor of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn and the Bulgarian Kristalina Georgieva, current N.2 of the World Bank.
The British government, which had been granted additional time to submit a candidate at the last minute, did not finally join the race to succeed Christine Lagarde who takes the presidency of the European Central Bank (ECB) this autumn.
To prevent the talks from continuing, the French Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire decided to submit the candidates to the vote of the member countries, an unprecedented procedure for the nomination of the European candidate.
Voting is conducted according to the European rules of the qualified majority: support from 55% of the member countries, ie 16 countries, representing at least 65% of the EU population is required.
Since its creation in 1944, the IMF has always been led by a European while an American has always been appointed head of the World Bank.
The EU-backed candidate has until September 6 to register with the IMF, which will choose its new chief executive by October 4.
© 2019 AFP