BERLIN (MNI) – Germany’s largest opposition party, the center-left
SPD, on Thursday said it was relieved that Bundesbank president Axel
Weber would not contend for the position of ECB president after
Jean-Claude Trichet’s term ends on October 31.
“It is to be welcomed that the Professor Weber seems to have
realized himself that he is not the right man for the Trichet
succession,” said the deputy leader of the SPD parliamentary group,
Joachim Poss.
Poss remarked that Weber had repeatedly opposed his fellow ECB
Governing Council members on important topics. “For some months now it
looks like President Weber is not really interested anymore in a good
understanding with his ECB colleagues,” he reckoned.
Media reports on Wednesday suggested that Weber would step down
this summer, prior to the end of his term in April 2012, and would not
be a candidate for the ECB top job any longer.
Ahead of a speech to a conference in Vienna earlier today, Weber
said he had spoken to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and told her he
would not comment on the issue until “we have met again and reached an
agreement.”
–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@marketnews.com
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