The European Central Bank has emerged from the financial crisis as one of the few institutions with its reputation intact – and its powers greatly enhanced – so a job on its governing council is a pretty good gig by any measure.
One is coming up in June, when Austrian economist Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell is leaving after eight years at the top table. She’s one of the six executive board members at the ECB, and as such also sits on the rate-setting governing council alongside the 17 governors of the national banks whose countries use the euro.
Two candidates have been put forward to replace her: Peter Praet, 61, a well-regarded director of the Belgian central bank for the past decade; and Elena Kohutikova, 57, a former Slovak national bank deputy governor and now an economist at Vseobecna Uverova Banka, a unit of Italy’s Intesa SanPaolo. Read more
Gideon Rachman and his FT colleagues debate international affairs on