European Parliament highlights Centeno and Latvian candidate as favourites for ECB vice-presidency

The European Parliament recommends Mário Centeno and Latvian Mārtiņš Kazāks as its preferred candidates for the position of Vice-President of the European Central Bank. This is a non-binding opinion and comes after MEPs heard the six candidates on Wednesday.

“On 14 January, members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs held informal exchanges of views with the six candidates for the position of the next ECB Vice-President. The committee coordinators, representing the majority of the committee’s composition, supported Mārtiņš Kazāks and Mário Centeno as the preferred candidates for this position,” reads a statement attributed to Aurore Lalucq, who chairs the committee in question.

She added: ‘I have consequently informed the President of the Eurogroup, Kyriakos Pierrakákis, and the President of Ecofin and Minister of Finance of Cyprus, Makis Keravnos.’

Wednesday’s informal meetings lasted about 30 minutes each, with Centeno attending the first meeting. In addition to the Portuguese and the Governor of the Central Bank of Latvia, Madis Müller, from Estonia, Olli Rehn, from Finland, Rimantas Šadžius, from Lithuania, and Boris Vujčić, from Croatia, were also heard, as they remain in the running, not least because this is a formal step but one whose outcome is not binding on the decision of the finance ministers.

On Monday 19th, there will be a Eurogroup meeting. It was already planned that the choice of De Guindos’ successor would be discussed and voted on, but it was admitted that the final result of a vote, which is expected to be complex, could be carried over to the next meeting in February. However, there is a growing conviction that every effort will be made to reach a decision on Monday.

Each country votes secretly in successive rounds until the required qualified majority is reached. This is a minimum of 16 votes in favour of one of the candidates (72% of countries), but that is not enough: this figure must include countries with at least 65% of the Eurozone population. Meanwhile, diplomatic contacts between the various countries continue in the search for support for this vote.

Who is Mārtiņš Kazāks

He joined the race in early November, although there was already speculation that Latvia would be interested in proposing a candidate. Aged 52, like other candidates, he was educated abroad: he graduated in Economics from Cambridge and completed his master’s and doctorate in the same field at Queen Mary University in London.

He has had a long and successful career in banking in his country, notably at the Hansabank Group (now Swedbank), which has a significant presence in Latvia. In 2018, he left his position as chief economist at the institution to join the supervisory board of the Latvian central bank. He also collaborated with his country’s Ministry of Finance in the area of economic forecasting and fiscal policy design.

In December 2019, he was appointed governor of the Bank of Latvia, becoming the youngest person ever to hold this position. He has attracted attention for being relatively vocal in his statements about the direction of the European Central Bank’s interest rates. His profile as a candidate is growing now that he has been recommended, along with Centeno, by the European Parliament.