Draghi wins approval for ECB presidency

BANK of Italy Governor Mario Draghi has won a European Parliament committee’s endorsement to succeed Jean-Claude Trichet as head of the European Central Bank.

The Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee in Brussels approved Mr Draghi’s nomination to become ECB president for an eight-year term, starting on November 1.

The full 736-seat European Union assembly is due to give its verdict on June 23.

“He will certainly make a good president,” Werner Langen, a German member of the 27-nation EU Parliament who sits on the committee, said yesterday after Mr Draghi completed a confirmation hearing at the panel.

Mr Draghi, 63, the sole nominee for ECB president, is preparing for the job as the euro area works on the second financial rescue of Greece in just over a year.

Approval of more Greek aid is being held up by ECB resistance to German government demands that private investors contribute.

Heeding the ECB line, Mr Draghi signalled yesterday that he may favour a voluntary rollover of Greek debt by investors in the style of the 2009 Vienna initiative, while repeating opposition to losses for bondholders.

“The Vienna initiative looks to me to be entirely voluntary,” Mr Draghi said. “The ECB is not in favor of restructuring and haircuts” and it “excludes all concepts that are not purely voluntary.”

As head of the Bank of Italy, Mr Draghi is a member of the ECB’s Governing Council.