According to the German newspaper Handelsblatt, Jens Weidmann, the current president of the German Bundesbank, will not be Merkel’s candidate at the head of the ECB in October 2019. Mario Draghi will leave the ECB presidency at this date.
This can be surprising but it is not. It’s the most rational decision for Germany.
The ECB strategy is often looked through the lens of the Bundesbank. We are all attentive to the German point of view. The German central bank is perceived as ultra orthodox on monetary policy and Germany is the largest and the most powerful country of the Eurozone. These two reasons suggest that there is no need of a German president. The Bundesbank president and the accumulated credibility of the Bundesbank are sufficient to condition the ECB’ s behavior. A German president would be redundant.
Germany can therefore choose a German candidate for another job at the top of an other European Institution and extend its influence.
Well done Angela