The Frankfurt-based bank with a staff of 500 that will co-ordinate Europe's monetary policy and steer the single currency, as defined in the Treaty of Maastricht: "The President shall be selected from among persons of recognised standing and professional experience in monetary or banking matters." Politicians need not apply.
There is a shortlist of two: Wim Duisenberg and Jean-Claude Trichet.
The Candidates
Wim Duisenberg
Born July 9th, 1935, in Heerenveen, the Netherlands.
Graduate in economics, University of Groningen.
Employment: staff of IMF ('65-'69); adviser to Nederlandsche (Central) Bank ('69-'70); professor, Amsterdam University ('70-'73); Minister for Finance ('73-'77); president Nederlandsche Bank ('82-'97); president European Monetary Institute ('97).
A former Social Democrat (PvdA) minister, now, but not then, of deeply orthodox financial views, Duisenberg is a strikingly tall figure with a shock of white hair and a craggy face. He shares the characteristic of fellow Frieslanders of stubbornness, seen as an important attribute in central bankers.
In 14 years at the helm of the Dutch Central Bank he has presided over a period of remarkable stabilisation of inflation and the guilder through a hard-guilder policy. The result was that following the ERM crisis of 1993 the Dutch alone were able to preserve a narrow fluctuation band.
Some see him as a Bundesbank clone whose legendary closeness to Hans Tietmeyer has led to stories of him regularly opening contributions to the EMI Council with the words "As Hans said . . ." Not surprisingly the Dutchman's candidacy appeals strongly to Bonn, but he has also got the implicit support of nine other countries.
A passionate golfer, his ball now appears to be in a bunker.
Jean-Claude Trichet
Born December 20th, 1942, in Lyons.
Qualified as a mining engineer, then graduate of both the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, and the Ecole Nationale d'Administration.
Employment: Finance ministry ('71-'78); head of inter-ministerial committee on industrial restructuring ('76-'78); adviser to finance minister then to President ('78 -'81); chief-of-staff to finance minister ('86-'87); head of treasury ('87-'93); Governor Bank of France ('93 ).
His single-minded pursuit of the franc-fort in the Bank of France by maintaining high "real" interest rates has won him few friends in industry or politics, but his credentials as a tough no-nonsense financial disciplinarian are undoubted: inflation is now running at under 2 per cent. His refusal to cut interest rates to stimulate growth is seen by some as having contributed to the fall of the conservative government.
But the former head of the treasury was perhaps lucky to escape the political fall-out from the collapse of the inadequately supervised Credit Lyonnais.
His outspokenness earned him a public rebuke by President Chirac shortly after his election in 1995: "Monsieur Trichet is not there to tell the government the policies it should carry out in the economic field." And some suggest his nomination was in part an attempt by Chirac to get rid of him.
He is seen as very bright and hardworking, but some officials have complained of his tendency to ramble and "philosophise" at meetings (don't all the French?). His real passions are literature - Proust, Saint-Jean Perse, and Mallarme - and modern art.
