FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German Claudia Buch was chosen on Wednesday to head the European Central Bank’s (ECB) prudential supervisory board, overseeing a 26 trillion-euro banking sector that must now adapt to an era of high inflation and rising interest rates.
Beating out Spain’s Margarita Delgado in what was seen as a close competition, Claudia Buch will head the Single Supervisory Mechanism, which covers more than a hundred of the euro zone’s biggest lenders.
A doctor in economics and vice-president of the Bundesbank since 2014, Claudia Buch is relatively new to banking supervision, having only been chosen to represent Germany on the ECB supervisory board last March.
This relative inexperience is why some members of the European Parliament argued, after a closed-door hearing, that Margarita Delgado was a more suitable candidate.
Others argued that Claudia Buch’s experience in academia, central banking, financial stability, and management gave her strong legitimacy for the position.
“There is no doubt that Claudia Buch is a highly qualified candidate with the right skills to lead the Single Supervisory Mechanism,” said German conservative MP Markus Ferber.
“Given that the European Parliament must confirm this choice, it is somewhat surprising that the ECB has chosen not to follow the recommendation of the ECON committee. This makes the process more complicated than it should be.”
Claudia Buch must now return to the same committee for a public hearing and must still obtain approval from the European Parliament.
If the process is completed successfully, Claudia Buch will succeed Italian Andrea Enria on January 1 for a non-renewable five-year mandate.
(Reporting Balazs Koranyi; Nicolas Delame for the French version, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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